Blessed be the...

When I finished my son's baby book, a compilation of photos from his first year of life, for his fifth birthday, I recalled John O'Donohue's poem "For Your Birthday." I had read it somewhere during those busy early childrearing years. Now, I think of the poem as his birthday approaches. The poem reminds me of the wild beauty this universe exhibits in it's quest to express life in its many forms. 

My kiddos are both mysterious, loving, kind, unique, and cursed to have me as their mother in the sense of whatever bent I give them, will be a bent from which they must eventually find release. In contrast, I have been shackled, smothered, loved, hugged, weighed down, and lifted up by their beings, downfalls, and special joys. I alternate between conjuring and entropy. I'm a little push here, a smidge of prodding there, or just a stir of the pot kind of parent, hopeful but not always trusting in leaving well enough alone, yes, a helicopter parent at times. Parenting has been an amazing privilege at which I have both failed miserably (yelled my head off at an innocent child) and soared spectacularly (held myself back to allow them space to take off)-- somedays on the same day. Even though I occasionally wish they would turn off the widgets spontaneously,  play the piano without prompting, or clean their room regularly, I remain in awe of my kiddos and their special ways. Some of us get distracted, forget, or have lost touch with what pushes our buttons to dive deep, fly solo, or love unquestioningly, thankfully, so far, not them. Happy birthday to my little guy, your mama loves you.

For Your Birthday

Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,
Illuminating all the faces and voices
That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth

Praised be your father and mother
Who loved you before you were;
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.

Blessed be those who have loved you
Into becoming who you were meant to be,
Blessed be those who have crossed your life
With dark gifts of hurt and loss
That have helped to school your mind
In the art of disappointment.

When desolation surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
And found you, their kind hands
Urgent to open a blue window
In the grey wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
Your health, eyes to behold the world,
Thoughts to countenance the unknown,
Memory to harvest vanished days,
Your heart to feel the world’s waves,
Your breath to breathe the nourishment
Of distance made intimate by earth.

On this echoing-day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generousity of silence
To hear your hidden heart,
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew
By the miracle of your being.

– from Benedictus, by John O’Donohue

A Lesson from Marie Howe

A few months ago while ambling along the Hocking River, a voice rich with wisdom came through my headset via a podcast. In hopes of divining further truths, I listened to it again and again. The voice belongs to Marie Howe, the poet, who happens to be at the Spring Lit Fest at Ohio University. 

Howe's podcast talk of poetry akin to spells got to that funny place inside me where light can penetrate undiscovered territory. Oo oo, I thought when Howe said, "... we all need to walk around with, a handful of counter spells, you know. And, and poetry, when you think of its roots, you know, is that." I bought her book The Kingdom of Ordinary Time so I could sit with her words on my search for counter spells.

Howe read her own poetry on opening night, but I had missed it so I hustled to Alden Library for her talk- in case you noted a black blur streaking up East State Street. Except she wasn't first so I was alright, and Brian Doyle was wonderful, but I'll save that thought for another time. 

This day Marie Howe read others' poems. Then she talked us through the fine words and quiet spaces found within those poems. She told us that poetry holds a silence at the center of it, "the what that cannot be said or reduced." (No wonder I can't write a poem!)

Then, Howe gave us a writing assignment. She asked us to contradict ourselve, to force ourselves from where we want to go. This was Howe's writing prompt "I did not know...."

Here goes...

The Man Who Could Not Hug

When it came to choosing a career, I wanted to do something real, that was action oriented, and that could be done in a variety of settings. I  became a nurse. However, I did not anticipate that I would watch the dying or listen to others' pain, nor did I imagine the hands I would hold or the old skin I would polish until it gleamed. Sometimes things smelled awful, but still it was a job made of moments tangible with presence, the real stuff I had sought and more.

Now I sit here with words. Words do not smell or weigh of anything and yet with words I am in a hospital room where a man’s blood pours out, gushes like a spring river, from every cavity. The smell of lead or maybe something dying permeates the moment in my memory. The rustle of blue plastic pads and the hum of fluorescent lights throb in my brain. The sounds are punctuated by a vision of hands and arms that disappear into the deep cavities of a man's body.

Someone at every limb pours something into him though his insides seem to be coming out faster than we can pour it back. The team presses on, there are bags and bags of fluids, blood, fresh frozen plasma, staff replacements rotate in, we can keep this up seems to murmur in the energy of the room. 

In my memory, there are ten of us to the one of him. The senior nurse encourages me, "We can do this." She must see the doubt in my face. I nod my head unsure, but keep my eyes on my hands, my work. I have never seen anything like this. I will never again because before long I will choose other work, but in that moment I am appalled at how close to the edge we are with this man's life going out of him like a waterfall.

We fight, each on our front, with his body at the center in hopes of restoring him, of calling him back. Our weapons of choice are blood, fluids, and medicines. It goes on and on for hours. When I leave at day’s end, the floor is littered with empty plastic bags.

About a year later, I am floated to the Surgical Trauma Unit on the day shift a few days before I will be moving across the country. That afternoon, a man with no arms walks into the floor, to say hello to a place he can’t quite recall, but his family can.  He has come back to see the place that saved him, I think.

Only it never works quite like that.

As a crowd of nurses, residents, doctors, and other staff spontaneously gathered around him, I remember wondering, What will he say? Maybe he'll thank us for our hard work. Only a few patients returned to the units when I worked there.

This man who had lost his arms, to his shoulders from an injury that had brought him to us, said this gem, “I miss being able to hug someone. I didn’t know how important that was when I had arms, but now that I can’t, I know it is the greatest thing I’ve lost.”

I turn and walk away so I could stuff my heart back down into my stomach, or under it, or wherever the hell it is supposed to go or stay.

I keep going back to that wretched moment where I turned and walked away from that man and the group surrounding him, too much pain. See, I’m that weepy soul that cries over every little thing if I don’t keep a collar on it- I pull, it tugs, shimmies, and morphs as if Houdini so I tookoff in part to avoid spilling tears at work.

Howe's prompt, "I did not know," however, flipped me to this story that I keep telling, the story of the man who could not hug, because it touches regret and lost chances. I see now that through the pain lies the path to what is important. It hurts because it matters. My stuffed downed regrets lead me back like the trail of moonstones that Hansel left in the woods. Pains linger and remind me that they must be faced before they can truly be put to rest.

When you fear giving a hug consider the idea of not being able to give a hug.

A Riddle

"What sees, but has no eyes, and speaks, but has no mouth?" asks the child. The parents, stumped, sat quietly. "A thought," answered the child.

Our son told us that he made up this riddle-- likely while he was not raising his hand to speak in class or  maybe when he was supposed to be spelling something correctly or perhaps when he wasn't listening to his mother call him to dinner. 

What we value and what is valuable are not the same things.

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu) & Miyazaki Plans Exit

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu), an epic film that sweeps through earthquake, fire, and dreams, is seen through the thick round bespectacled airplane designer, Jiro Horikoshi. His singleminded devotion to airplanes and love of flying machines dominates his life and dreams against the historical backdrop of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, an economic depression, a tuberculous epidemic, and war in Japan. 

Jiro's story is fueled by dreams, sponge cake, and cigarettes. His dreams are shared with an Italian airplane designer, Caproni (voiced by Stanley Tucci), who notes that though the work is designing airplanes, they are used for war and destruction, but he chooses to stay focused on the beauty of the machines, "Airplanes are not for war or making money. Airplanes are beautiful dreams waiting to be swallowed by the sky." Jiro's curmudgeon boss, Kurokawa, (voiced by Martin Short) attempts to counter Jiro's dreaminess. Leaving a meeting with the military brass, Kurokawa says to Jiro, "You weren't even listening!" Jiro's focus is on creating and his response is classic Clint Eastwood, "Nope." 

Work dominates Jiro's life, and yet he is one to pause momentarily for music, to help others, to read poetry, and to take in the beauty of the Japanese countryside. He is not paralyzed by the pain of life or by the knowledge that his flying machines are wanted by the military. Instead he remains steadfast in his efforts to create something original and, to him, beautiful.  In a nod to the economic depression and his military minded customer he knows that he'll need ingenuity to overcome the lack of resources at his disposal from flush rivets to leaving off the guns. My eight year old history buff noted that Jiro's final aircraft was the Zero combat plane used in World War II.

A French poem, "The Graveyard by the Sea" ("Le Cimetière marin") by Paul Valery "The wind is rising!…We must try to live!" ("Le vent se lève!... Il faut tenter de vivre!"), gives the film its title and is at the core the way Jiro deals with obstacles in war, life, and love, it is about living, not regret.

Small doses of humor pepper the story through other characters such as when the Germans complain, "You Japanese copy everything!" Jiro's friend, Honjo (voiced by John Krasinski) quips, "What? Are you afraid we'll improve it?" Still the heart of this Jiro's story is about creating. In a dream sequence Caproni says "Artist are only created for ten years." At the end Caproni returns in another dream to ask him, "Ten years in the sun, did you live them well?"

Jiro's love, Nahoko Satomi (voiced by Emily Blunt) continues the theme of focusing on beauty and the moments at hand instead of the of what they cannot control or have due to the tuberculosis shortening her days. The most poignant scene is voiced by the landlady who stops Jiro's sister from going after Nahoka when she is seen walking away. The landlady (voiced by Jennifer Grey) understands that Nahoka wants Jiro to remember her as she was.

The animation is rich and detailed, the film long. The story's themes are complex and not for children, but for those who can understand the call of beauty and creating art and that the outcome of such work, though it can be used destructively, is born from an inner vision and drive that is without guile. Longing and loss play heavily in the second half of the film. Perhaps writer, director, and animator, Hayao Miyazaki wants us to remember him in a certain way while he still has the energy and will to direct his creativity. The Wind Rises seems a fitting capstone to his career.

"Ten years in the sun, did you live them well?" is a worthy question to ask ourselves.

Love Anyway

Pastor Rob read the lyrics to this song on Sunday. I didn't know the song, but the words buzzed in my head all afternoon anyway.

Anyway 

People are often unreasonable, illogical,and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. 

If you are kind, People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. 

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.

Author unknown  

music by Maggie and Suzzy http://www.roches.com/lyrics/zerochurch.html#ANYWAY

My husband will tell you, I'm a dreamer. He still chides me for, "Let's bicycle around Australia!" I think this was on the heels of my suggestion that we take the transcontinental train across Siberia. I used to get mad at his lack of interest. I think he knew I wouldn't make it past the proverbial local hill. Eventually, I realized my life's adventures were closer to home. 

I want to do something grand like slay dragons or save the ark. I thought if I wasn't struck down by tragedy and misadventure like Anne Frank or a Dear Sugar advice seeker, that I was doomed to live in the land of happy people where nothing interesting ever happens. There are no stories, there are no adventures, and there are no movies about the land of happy people.

It feels unfair to claim a struggle when others go deeper, darker, or further away. Like Sisyphus, I struggle over and over with the same rock(s). Then a young writer, Kerry Leigh, reminded me that whatever struggle you have, it is yours, and it is how you know what pain or love is through your experience. My wee rock collection is a good enough rock collection.

While waiting to fall into some black hole, I've noticed that my heart doesn't listen to reason, and it has a tendency to make me cry. The waterworks (tears) spring into action with a sigh of breath, a stir of love, or a drop of beauty. It's how my heart sends me directions because my brain just won't shut up otherwise, my very own dowsing rod. Fat lot of good it does me when I get choked up and feel lost in a sea of emotions, but there it is.

I defer to the experts as if only they know the magic formula for the good, the bad, and the ugly. I rush in, I dig too deep, I pan too shallow, and that divining rod that resides in my chest trembles and directs me to love anyway. 

A Glimpse of Beauty

the birds that fly away
are never exactly the same as those that return 

Anne Pierson Wiese, "Everything but God" from  Floating City: Poems

I watch my children and marvel at their strengths, despair at their faults, and wonder at what I know and don't know of them. As babies I was better than anyone else at predicting their wants and needs. I am in tune with their rhythms and needs more than anyone else even now. I watch them, I care for them, and I'm besotted. They are such interesting people to me, so fully themselves, so uniquely different from each other, and so impossibly beautiful as every world is to the frequent observer.

How is it that beauty has an edge of pain? I am sometimes gripped by a sadness when I feel the flash of beauty upon a moment.

I stared at a lot of paintings, and other things deemed physically beautiful, traipsing about cathedrals and museums in Europe. I can recognize a painter's skill but it is characters, story lines, and words that allow me to enter into beauty. Maybe others know music or paint or dirt as their gateway.

If you have ever meditated, you may have heard the analogy of the glass jar full of dirty water. As the jars jostles along in the day it is cloudy and difficult to see through until it sits quietly with time to allow things to settle which is when clarity comes. When you sit and let things fall away, things settle down and you can see better. In search of this quiet depth, I read and read. Sometimes I think I read too much, and sometimes I think I don't read enough.

Last night I read of Jack, Laura Ingalls Wilder's dog, dying. Tears sprang to my eyes. In a flash I went from reading the story which had lurched forward five years with the start of another book in the series, to watching my cat on the last day of her life from my front steps. Maybe it's the goodbye. I'm not good with them because I know how much change goodbye means-- they mean not seeing someone for a long time, if ever again.

Friends walk in and out of your life. Sometimes life conspires to bring you together again, maybe if you're from the same town, at a random concert and spot each other across the crowd, or because you always stay open to each other. The loss is when their presence is not part of the continual probing and exploring of your life. When you make giant strides across the globe, parts of your life are lived here and there, leaving a lot of holes behind. Connections that root you to people and places weaken.

I'm built like Swiss cheese, full of holes but firm enough. I think I'm supposed to be like Brie, soft and squishy, but it feels like the world is built for hard cheddar, firm and smooth. Nothing is smooth about goodbye or beauty to me. The wellspring of beauty is love and pain. Love and pain are the sources that beauty draws upon. A few holes may allow the light to penetrate. Maybe some beauty will come of it in ways never imagined.

The wellspring of beauty is love and pain.

Tsukimi 月見 Moon Viewing

Sunlight on Mt. Fuji

Hiking Mt. Fuji last year was a memorable experience, and one I do not plan to repeat. Visualizing plodding elephant legs as I slightly lifted my booted foot forward, just skimming the ground,  got me to the top. Last year I was thinking of sunrises, this year I am thinking of the moon and light.

A full moon is coming: 12 September 2011

There will be a full moon tonight. It is my friend's daughter's birthday so I asked my friend if there were any associations with full moons in Japanese culture. Turns out there is a long history of moon viewing in Japan, Tsukimi 月見 - it seems no opportunity is missed to admire nature here. Westerners may think of Tokyo, city life, as Japan, but I am guessing that the city dwellers in Tokyo pay more attention to the rhythms of nature than New Yorkers.

What to do to honor the full moon besides watching it? Why cooking of course. My friend said she will make dango a pounded rice dumpling made from rice flour. The balls look like a full moon. The tastiest thing to do is have you watch "Cooking with Dog" on Youtube. They will show you how. These are a variation as they have tofu in them but it just makes them healthier and no less tastier.

Boil dango until they float then be ready with skewers and toppings!

I also couldn't pass up this poem, The Word, by Tony Hoagland about sunshine which was posted via The Writer's Almanac:

Down near the bottom

of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,
between "green thread"
and "broccoli," you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."
Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend
and sunlight were a present
he had sent from someplace distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,
and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing
that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds
of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder
or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,
but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom
still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,
—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.

"The Word" by Tony Hoagland, from Sweet Ruin. © University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)