I am an invisible person.
I’m sure you’ll disagree
But you’ve been well versed in
How to visualize me.
Maybe scorch-eye my belly
Disapprove my thickened thighs
Look down your nose at me ready
to allow me to be humanized
then possibly you’ll witness me
Become familiar and un-stigmatized
Perfumed purification
anointed my skin
fragrant with absolution
My brethren
Blessed sisters;
Heart-bound lovers
Spirit-kin
My blood baptized
in the cistern of love
Forgiven to be human
The elation of redemption
damp against my brow
Dancing in broad circles
Breathless with abandon
the release of blissful beauty
This has nothing to do with Japanese Death Poems, even though it kinda does. I’ve made it into a have-to which means I’m commitment shy. I want to read them. I nearly made it through the introduction but found Charlie Mackesy instead at a client’s home.
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse was sitting on the coffee table. It has a sketch picture on the front which is what caught my eye. The rough edged raw that showed beauty in loose lines with suggestive coloring. The inside cover filled with music that rippled in waves of tones coming off the printed paper. I was pulled in by simplicity in paradox.
It looks as if the print in the book were carefully calligraphied to demonstrate a deep caring sense of connection to the reader. Although there were parts (like the author’s name) where I had trouble discerning letters (Where’s my glasses?), the words were crafted with care.
“Life is difficult but you are loved.” Simple truth brought to life in a tale of loving friendship in a makeshift family. I identified with wanting to belong, seeking other odd creatures, befriending them in the way family could be, and walking them home. What a deeply sensitive place to balance; on the edge of tenderness.
Dive into the depths of light-hearted conversations rich with wisdom. This made my heart deeply happy.
One of the things I dislike about my time management skills is that I tend to attend to whatever coal is the hottest at the moment. Crisis in lane three, meltdown imminent! Wherever the smoke and mirrors of daily life are flashing the brightest, I find myself drawn to its spectacle.
And there sits the book. Judging me with not an ounce of its former tree self. I’ve caressed its pages more than the other many books on my shelves lately. It’s hard to concentrate when grief feels perpetual, even comfortable.
I experienced and mostly know what to expect with a normal bomb of grief. I understand that there is a loss of some sort, people get together and feel sad at the celebration of life, then, although time seems to stand still closest to the death/detonation, time continues to move forward whether we do or not.
I’ve been in grieving mode for what seems like decades, but lately, I’ve noticed a shift in how I deal with it. Maybe it’s because more people are experiencing the isolation, anxiety, anger, frustration, weariness, loneliness, and trauma that has punished my existence but now as more people are talking about it as the new normal, I got this.
I’m so familiar with grief’s handshake, that I, considering the pandemic, can only greet it from a social distance which means this is alien grief. This is not the grief I know. This isn’t that familiar.
Oddly, this feels like the moment I’ve been training for all my life. Because I know what it’s like to have your life ripped away because of an event beyond your control. I comprehend the feeling of “differentness” that suddenly sets you apart from everyone else by just enough to feel like an outsider. I really see the ones who think they’ve covered the gaping wounds sufficiently but the shock of life, like now, is just enough different to feel tragic. Almost like an imposition of force against one’s will.
These words aren’t meant to be analogous to any event in particular, but to demonstrate the way I’m hearing the quarantine be talked about regarding mental health. People are struggling to function by feeling the same things I feel every day. I’m hearing people feel hope slipping through their fingers like water. I know the depth of that well and yet I’ve never touched the bottom despite my efforts.
It hurts my heart to know how many that are talking about it are obfuscating the ones who won’t ever or don’t ever recognize the grief that comes from trauma, restriction of life, or the anxiety that comes from the fear that you may become ill among many others; the ones of the silent voice. I know for every voice that speaks, many tell the same stories in their hearts to their secret keepers.
I’m here. I see you. I feel you. You’re not alone. It will get better.
So, the book. I haven’t cracked it open, nor the other. I’ve been dealing with some pretty hefty events both positive and negative as well as inevitable. Things are, in my world, normal. I’m sorry. I’ll do my best. In fact, tonight I’ll bring it to bed with me and read.
Lose track of the wind
on the mirror surfaced lake
christening the sky
with clear intent
Where is the coffin
but sky and earth
the heavens ornaments
of universal praise
And yet, in the kitchen,
where life is rebirthed,
there gathered the women
pottery deep into breakfast
the labor of reassurance has begun
the calm center of the maelstrom;
change the only constant
There is light
Light in the darkness
Light in the chaos
So is life with death
Born when it’s time to be born;
die when it’s time to die.
It’s movement, a process
where peace with time is in repose
there is an order of things
neither joy nor sorrow may take hold
Yet, Spring, herald of rebirth
has abandoned blooming,
it feels like Winter
Like the depths of the ocean
have suddenly become thick air
Upon this fleeting dream-world
Dawn is breaking
Even though some trees are bedecked
The willow boughs in comprehension
Acknowledging the bond
and where
the direction of love is not lost
the deeper treasure of sweetened time
will reap its own reward.
I love people who frame their puzzles
and hang HOME upon their walls
I love the people who are never quiet
even as night-time falls
I love the people I call family
as right as any blood
I love the fam’ly of my heart
who love me like they should.
I’ve thought about your chronological timeline of our relationship that you wrote with such attention. I wish I could see it like that. The absence of our relationship during the lean years of our emotional lives burdens me to this day, but not how you may think.
With your guidance, perhaps I’d have avoided some of the pain I endured because I refused your matriarchal wisdom. Without you, I kept myself small so that others, undeserving/saints, could shine their sins/lights through me, the prism child. The magical being you brought into this world. With my life reborn here, you’re not losing me, you’re gifted with the light’s rebirth in my spirit. It burdens me because I couldn’t shine for you like I shine here. Know that in my heart of hearts, I am but a reflection of those around me, and around you, I’m at my most glorious.
You wrote of us breaking apart in our relationship, but Mama, this is how I roll. I realize this with Ben and my marriage. I love that man ridiculously. I wish him not a lick of harm which is why I’m away from him. He couldn’t give me what I needed right now.
This was not personal against you, although I recognize how it could feel that way. Perhaps feeling like you’re not enough to keep my heart. As I stated above, it’s because of you that I felt brave enough to step out into the world. It’s because of you, I felt the confidence to face my darkest fears. No ordinary person could love like you, my mother, my heart, my love. You make mistakes, but man, so do I.
This, my beloved mother, is how I want you to know I love you. You’re not a saint, but you’re an angel in a meat suit. I think the world of you even when you’re doing what I call mundane things. Things I’ve seen you both do for a million years; Things that make me want to have a more musical life (like a real musical, not just singing (Hit song quality)). Ones where the true feelings pour out of the mouths of people like you and me in a harmony that is strictly our own. Like the Loon song you sing with Dad, the familiar feel of three-word arguments and ribs with deep gouges from elbows.
Please read this with an open heart so that I can snuggle up inside and feel the safest I ever feel. Allow me to cuddle up against your memories like when we’d watch TV on the couch and I’d get the knee because I was the oldest. How I’d fall asleep on your hip and don’t ever remember waking up. I want to remember how it felt to know I was protected like I feel now.
I know I’m not what you expected or maybe even hoped for. I’m loud, cuss a lot, think nakedly, don’t filter frequently, but I’ve tried so hard not to break your heart or disappoint you. It’s a reason I stayed as long as I did. It’s a damn good reason to stay. That’s not blame, that’s recognition for the truth you showed me through your calming words when I freaked out over stuff that, truly, should never have happened or been said, but there it was and there you were with the dustpan to help me sweep up another mess.
As I sit here in my living room writing this on the computer I’m still paying for, I can’t help but be grateful for the many things you’ve allowed me to achieve with your generosity. You’ve helped me commit to things I was busting buttons proud to do. You helped me realize I’m okay and worth it even when everything went south before I did. I don’t know the right words to express how deeply I adore your generous heart. You are far more trusting of your intuition now that you’re older. I admire the growth I’ve seen since returning as a significantly different person than I knew.
I want this to be a letter that you cherish. If it’s anything but, please let me know. Every intention of these words on the page are to convey to you how very deeply, truly, and completely I adore you.
With deepest devotion, your daughter
Mare Helen
My body, this I be (My country tis of thee)
Peace, Joy, Affinity, (Sweet land of liberty)
Youth’s fountain springs (Of thee I sing)
Blood on my mother’s thighs (Land where my father’s died)
Gifts of our sister’s sighs (Land of the Pilgrim’s pride)
At every hearth reside (From every mountainside)
“Hestia, we sing!” (Let freedom ring!)
My soul was lost, floundering without purpose
Gypsy feet wandered human nature
The Sedona Red Rocks of Arizona
Showed me the intense beauty of desert isolation
Reflecting my sun glared eyes
Sunburned skin – husk of an old life shed
Revelation of the raw and openly scored spirit
My feet turned towards the forest loam
I walk deeply, mindfully, into the Ponderosa stand,
Dripping regrets onto needles that violate
My feet and legs, creating a tenderness
That feels like Christmas morning
I climbed mountains to witness the freedom
Of flight
But found the rocks resistant to my wings
Forbidding me entrance;
With courage forged in the fires of trauma
I ascended.
Flinging myself into the swirl of eddies
That couldn’t hold me
I plummeted into the icy, unforgiving river
Where I forded from embankment to water’s edge
Directionally challenged as I
I fight against the rushing waters
Until I’m exhausted and finally relent
To the inevitable flash flood of grief
It washes me onto the shores
Of the roiling ocean waves
Under a full moon gleaming
In sacred silence
I left immediate footprints of ideas,
Beliefs, and yet more solitude of a different depth
The winds of change hurricaned me east
Lessons abandoned, like me,
At the foot of the Great Smokey Mountains
Phoenix-like, I refused my ashes
Reconstituting in my power
Hear me, my friends, those who feel outside
Those who feel forgotten or invisible,
Those who feel created to endure tribulations
Those who arrive precisely on time
Into my company: exhausted, panting, sweating
Sopping in voracious victory
With reciprocal love we bond
Dancing with wild abandon
Intermingling
Pressing our heartbeats together
In loving embraces
With you I’ve found my way home.
Mother God, benefactor of all that is holy.
You have led us to this place together as a community and bound us to one another through faith.
In the beginning of this Advent season, may we remember your unexpected appearance among us in the birth of a child.
You make yourself known to us again and again but we sometimes are deaf and blind to you. Help us to clear our ears and open our eyes to your word
God of Peace, whose ways are not our own and whose coming among us cannot be predicted, we dare to welcome your surprises, seeking to be awake and alert, and to fully embrace the unexpected. That we might be changed by your appearance and transformed into loving vessels with radical acceptance.
Now let us feel your presence as we live as you taught us and pray as you taught us: Lord’s Prayer
words. hearts. secrets.
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