It's when the lilacs begin to bloom, come late spring, that I always feel the urge to re-read a rather silly, but sort of lovely, little book. Seventeenth Summer was written in 1942 by Maureen Daly. A quick internet search of Ms. Daly doesn't reveal great abundance; she wrote Summer when she was still in college, presumably in the late 1930s or early 1940s, and she went on to write other novels for 'young people'. It would be easy to assume that once she married, Daly went on to lead a rather conventional mid-twentieth century life; she was a woman, after all, and the time period would have easily placed her in apron and house-dress, a gaggle of children at her table. But Daly did otherwise. When she married the writer William P. McGivern in 1947, he didn't stow her away in the suburbs; instead, they wrote together, chronicling their travels to Africa, Spain, and Ireland. No mention of children in my research. No mention of house-wifery. Daly was a writer from a very young age, and she lived her life as such, pursuing a passion that may not have brought her incredible fame or fortune, but one that answered in her a simple and elemental need.
I'm not really sure why I love so the life that Daly lived. I'm not really sure why I love her book Seventeenth Summer, which, by most standards, is overly simplistic and nostalgic. But I do love these things. I take great comfort in the fact of their existence. Seventeenth Summer is a simple tale; it's about a quiet girl named Angie who graduates from high school and begins a summer romance with one Jack Duluth, a popular but humble basketball star from the high school across town who now drives his father's bakery delivery truck. Angie has college designs; Jack, on the other hand, will live out the rest of his life in a small town, working for his father's business. The story is about Angie's first brush with romance and freedom, but in its own quiet way, it's also a commentary on the way small town life--and the way our families--can so easily, so stealthily, encircle us with their comforting but sometimes stifling familiarity and refuse to let us go.
There is a heaviness in Daly's writing. Angie's mother is kind and keeps a clean house, but she also sleeps a lot, pulling the blinds against the summer heat for long afternoon naps. Angie's older sister Lorraine returns home from college for the summer with fashionable clothes and a grown-up air, but she also spends a lot of time fussing in the bathroom and dating 'shady' men who have certain expectations. None of this is examined outright; Daly simply puts it on the page, surrounding these muted realities with descriptions of McKnight's drugstore on a Saturday night, and the way Angie and Jack's romance strengthens as the summer passes by.
This is a book about a girl coming to life. Sure, she falls in love with Jack, but she also falls in love with the things that surround her. Angie loves life. She loves the way her fingers feel in the garden's earth when she harvests beans for her mother. She loves the way the wild grasses by the train tracks scratch her bare legs as she walks with Jack. She notices the heavy shadows below her father's eyes when he returns home from work; she sees the red imprint of fabric pattern on her sister's cheek when she wakes from sleep.
I love Seventeenth Summer because it is simple, but also because it carries a deep awareness of the weight of life. It doesn't seek to give answers or explanations for this weight; I think Daly wrote because she was an observer. She watched people. She took notice. I know next to nothing of her; still, I like to imagine that she sought to live the way she wrote--paying attention to that which is beautiful and transformational beneath the catchings of a routine life. There is beauty in weeds by railroad tracks, if you let them brush your bare summer legs and you happen to find yourself with a boy in a clean white shirt. Somehow, as Daly seemed to recognize, seeing this kind of beauty becomes easier when the seasons turn, and we sleep with windows open to the smell of night rain and blooming lilacs.
I turn to Seventeenth Summer as a kind of physical calling; my world has just become lush, and I want a story that understands what this season prods again to life: the truth that the months of most unencumbered vitality throw into greater relief the heavy living that darker seasons nourish. That in all of its miraculous abundance, summer is the season of greatest bittersweet.
Thanks for reading.
Beth
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Found Poems
Once a month, I lead a writing group at the public library. There is mostly constant turnover every month, which I've come to see as a kind of blessing in disguise: those who are old hands bring their familiarity, their continuity. Those who are new always have something to add that wasn't there before. This month, a new member of the group brought us this idea: Found Poems. The way she explained it--and the way I understood it--is that Found Poems are poems created from writing that already exists on the page. Take a book. A magazine. A newspaper. Circle words. Find poetry in the stuff that's before you. Piece the words together as a stream, or use them to birth your own new thoughts.
This girl was fantastic; she read us her work, and we were all floored. Amazed and eager to try our hand at this kind of creation. And we did, and it was wonderful.
I left the writing group feeling so buoyed by the amount of creativity that exists in the world; often, it comes before us when we're not even looking, and when it does, it takes us by the nape of the neck and tugs us into wakening. I've got to pay better attention.
I didn't study poetry in school, but on the timeline of my writing life, poetry came early (albeit the angst ridden, dramatic stuff of teenagers) and sometimes when I sit down to write, I realize that what I really feel like writing is a poem. But, I tell myself, that's not what you went to school for. That wasn't your 'focus'. So what? So I don't know how to do it? Bull.
Julia Cameron tells us that at bottom, we're all writers. We're all aiming to communicate; we're all constantly practicing the art of the word; we're all essentially seeking the best vessel for our story. The vessel is going to change depending on what we're needing to say, and that's okay. Pay attention. Let the story be carried the way it wants to be carried.
So for this Sunday in early May, the vessel of the Found Poem:
If the prophet came to my house, I'd show him the exposed pipes
in my basement.
'Bones,' he'd say, and we'd be in agreement,
the single understanding of structure a uniting force
for which I am grateful.
This girl was fantastic; she read us her work, and we were all floored. Amazed and eager to try our hand at this kind of creation. And we did, and it was wonderful.
I left the writing group feeling so buoyed by the amount of creativity that exists in the world; often, it comes before us when we're not even looking, and when it does, it takes us by the nape of the neck and tugs us into wakening. I've got to pay better attention.
I didn't study poetry in school, but on the timeline of my writing life, poetry came early (albeit the angst ridden, dramatic stuff of teenagers) and sometimes when I sit down to write, I realize that what I really feel like writing is a poem. But, I tell myself, that's not what you went to school for. That wasn't your 'focus'. So what? So I don't know how to do it? Bull.
Julia Cameron tells us that at bottom, we're all writers. We're all aiming to communicate; we're all constantly practicing the art of the word; we're all essentially seeking the best vessel for our story. The vessel is going to change depending on what we're needing to say, and that's okay. Pay attention. Let the story be carried the way it wants to be carried.
So for this Sunday in early May, the vessel of the Found Poem:
Bones
If the prophet came to my house, I'd show him the exposed pipes
in my basement.
'Bones,' he'd say, and we'd be in agreement,
the single understanding of structure a uniting force
for which I am grateful.
I'll abandon the prophet after one month,
and rake up a new journey,
my own chorus a silent but pregnant calling of blessings
thanksgivings
anointing the page with predawn feedings of the war that still
is asking to be fought.
Mine are battlefields of flowering weeds,
careful where you tread.
There are hidden mines
trick wires
snares as thin and sturdy
as fishing line
ready to catch you up.
Sparrow
The perfect farewell would not be a farewell at all.
I am meant to protect, take care, of what I know, and what I know
is you.
How to protect what is no longer around me?
We two, are victims of previous floods; a lot of our old trees are down,
and we mourn the sparrows that lived among them.
Once I told you this story.
On a Sunday, in the California summer, the cat caught a bird,
delivered her into the house
alive.
I spent an hour wondering at the fluttering,
the threshing, desperate, muffled
sound that filled the room
until I saw her, wing mangled,
behind the drape of curtain on the floor.
Gather her up with bare hands
and take her to the lilac bush, blooming.
Place her between the roots, a heady blossom
hanging low to shade her.
Then walk away. Do not stay.
Not our business how wild things die.
Theirs is an alter too big for us.
Thanks for reading.
Beth
Friday, April 13, 2012
Gratitude Month Week Two: The Kingdom of Now. A Collection.
Do not hurry; do not rest. Though even He rested, one day.
Some moments, spent missing you.
Other moments, spent missing not one single square inch of you.
Dog's life is shorter than mine; let him stop to smell everything.
The now of waking: what kind of sky, through the threadbare curtain.
The now of waking: the cat, less her collar, comes in through an open window, paws wet with night rain, examining the thin skin of my eyelid with curious nose. She loves me.
My mother's voice is calm when she tells me the news, but even in this calm we are both thinking: nothing else matters, but this.
Put my face over the coffee grounds as the steaming water seeps through; half the reason why, anyway.
My father gave me the carved wind spiral from the house; after a heavy wind I go to reorder its lines of wood and spend the afternoon with cedar fingers.
On the bus, a girl with a rope of beautiful hair bound to her head with a glass comb.
Through the wall, the low vibrations of my neighbors, talking to their baby.
The now of the house plant: You need more time to grow your roots, I say. You, too, says the houseplant.
Three new blossoms of the African Violet, timid before the grey window light.
A body strong enough to cover seven miles and more.
Three new blossoms of the African Violet, timid before the grey window light.
A body strong enough to cover seven miles and more.
The
Moonflower that has survived the fall and winter indoors; that is
beginning to thrive, give new growth. With luck and encouragement, it
will bloom for one night in late summer, its white blossom a single,
unfurling trumpet under a dark September sky.
Ask only to be worthy.
With luck and encouragement.
Nothing else matters. But this.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Gratitude Month Week One: The Past. Or: This One's Called, 'Titanic'.
As interested as I am in the Freudian theory that most of our adult emotions, perspectives, reactions, and nuances stem from long submerged childhood experiences, I have a difficult time putting that interest into practice. I'm sure Freud is right; my past certainly does dictate a great deal of my present, but I have a hard time doing the work of examining my childhood. I don't feel a great amount of nostalgia for my childhood; in fact, if I'm being brutally honest, I find the romancing of childhood influence and memory rather cliche. This reaction isn't born of a bad upbringing, quite the contrary; I had, by most standards, an extremely blessed childhood: married parents, close siblings, animals to care for, toys to play with, healthy food, birthday presents and play dates and family vacations and warm beds and lullabies. I was rarely punished, nor was I overly spoiled. I respected my parents and genuinely loved them. I genuinely loved (love) my sisters. I suppose my disinterest in the deep analysis of my childhood might stem from the very fact that it was a good childhood; I don't want to color something pure with too much interpretation; I'd rather just let what was, be what it was.
As such, when I was sitting down to practice Gratitude Month, week one, in which I'm asked to recall and give thanks for a specific childhood influence, I found myself coming up dry. As a blanket statement, I will say: I am thankful--immensely, forevermore--for every single influence of my childhood. For every kind hand, word, action, deed, and gift that, for some miraculous act of random blessing, I was bestowed with. It is easy to look upon my childhood with simplicity and gratitude. Deed done. Where I have a bit more trouble, when focusing my gratitude towards the past, is in giving thanks for the girl I was at twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. The girl I was when I was deep in the heart of the worst place of being young--the terrible, wrenching, lonely, self-loathing place called 'Awkward'.
I sometimes joke about this time with my sisters, saying that my 'awkward phase' lasted from about age ten until twenty-two, and while it's undoubtedly true that I have spent the majority of my life feeling 'awkward' in one way or another, my true period of teenage angst only recalls itself as lasting because its contours were so sharp and gritty; I've long been tattooed up with the humiliations of that time, and while the marks have faded, they remain as a reminder that many of my adult sufferings stem not from the submerged terrors of a four or five year old, getting lost in a grocery store, but from my thirteen and fourteen year old self, desperate to pass the age-old high school test of survival.
It seemed fitting, then, to devote a bit of page space to the girl who causes me the greatest grimace, as I feel it is high time that she be forgiven for not knowing what she was not required to know at such a time: that living is more--ought to be more--than an exhausting hustle to be liked. This is her:
Bad haircut. Acne. An obsession with Leonardo DiCaprio. An ancient Bruce Springsteen cassette in the tape deck. Makeup that she doesn't know how to use. An older sister she is desperately envious of. A little sister who still wants her to play Barbie. A crush on the same old boy--the soccer player, the leader of the pack.
The year I am thirteen, my grandmother is living in our house. She is dying. Her heart is failing her. Her hospital bed and tray of medication, her oxygen machine, fill one room. At night there are nurses who sit up and listen for her call so my mother, consumed by grief, can attempt an hours sleep. My older sister has her license and goes out driving; her hair is long; she has friends. My little sister is five; I still sometimes play with her, setting up tiny houses with plastic furniture and calling our mother in to look at our interior design skills. It is a dark winter. The year I am thirteen, I go to see Titanic a total of eight times. A movie ticket--at night--is five dollars. I use up all of my allowances. I beg my mother to take me. My father. I drag along my best friend Megan, who is unimpressed. I hate my hair. My skin. My clothes. I want to be like my older sister. The house where I live does its best to emulate its normal loving aura, but the truth of it is dying, and eventually death, and all the living that we're required to do after. My mother kept living, through and after her grief; we all kept living, but it's no wonder that there are whole segments of that time--months--that hold no clear memory for me.
Last night I went to see Titanic again, in the movie theater. The ticket was eleven dollars. My little sister, who is now nearly twenty, went with me. We joked as we drove to the theater; remember how many times you went to see it when it first came out? I laughed at the girl I used to be; I rolled my eyes at her adolescent naivety. Sitting in the theater though, I found myself pulled back to that long ago dark winter, and I found that I could recall, with surprising clarity, what it had felt like to escape from the house to the movie theater; I could recall the rough fabric on the seat cushions; the stick of shoe sole to dried soda; the way I could escape, could hide myself, for a few hours, in story.
I didn't consider writing as an actual pursuit until much later in my life, but when I think about it, when I am forced to pause and remember, I see that I have been writing--I have been seeking the escape of story--all my life: writing poorly worded fairy tales on legal pads in the catacombs of the public library while I waited for my mother to finish her shift at the reference desk; writing horribly cliched poems that seemed all-powerful for my high school English classes; filling journal page after journal page with my latest demoralizing angst or fleeting swell of hopefulness. It is when I recall my life thus far in this vein, that I am apt to look upon the awkward, thirteen-year-old girl in the movie theater with forgiveness. Gratitude. Thank you, I want to say, for knowing that what we needed then, in the midst of deep sorrow, was a good story. Over and over again.
Thanks for reading. (This was a long one.)
Beth
As such, when I was sitting down to practice Gratitude Month, week one, in which I'm asked to recall and give thanks for a specific childhood influence, I found myself coming up dry. As a blanket statement, I will say: I am thankful--immensely, forevermore--for every single influence of my childhood. For every kind hand, word, action, deed, and gift that, for some miraculous act of random blessing, I was bestowed with. It is easy to look upon my childhood with simplicity and gratitude. Deed done. Where I have a bit more trouble, when focusing my gratitude towards the past, is in giving thanks for the girl I was at twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. The girl I was when I was deep in the heart of the worst place of being young--the terrible, wrenching, lonely, self-loathing place called 'Awkward'.
I sometimes joke about this time with my sisters, saying that my 'awkward phase' lasted from about age ten until twenty-two, and while it's undoubtedly true that I have spent the majority of my life feeling 'awkward' in one way or another, my true period of teenage angst only recalls itself as lasting because its contours were so sharp and gritty; I've long been tattooed up with the humiliations of that time, and while the marks have faded, they remain as a reminder that many of my adult sufferings stem not from the submerged terrors of a four or five year old, getting lost in a grocery store, but from my thirteen and fourteen year old self, desperate to pass the age-old high school test of survival.
It seemed fitting, then, to devote a bit of page space to the girl who causes me the greatest grimace, as I feel it is high time that she be forgiven for not knowing what she was not required to know at such a time: that living is more--ought to be more--than an exhausting hustle to be liked. This is her:
Bad haircut. Acne. An obsession with Leonardo DiCaprio. An ancient Bruce Springsteen cassette in the tape deck. Makeup that she doesn't know how to use. An older sister she is desperately envious of. A little sister who still wants her to play Barbie. A crush on the same old boy--the soccer player, the leader of the pack.
The year I am thirteen, my grandmother is living in our house. She is dying. Her heart is failing her. Her hospital bed and tray of medication, her oxygen machine, fill one room. At night there are nurses who sit up and listen for her call so my mother, consumed by grief, can attempt an hours sleep. My older sister has her license and goes out driving; her hair is long; she has friends. My little sister is five; I still sometimes play with her, setting up tiny houses with plastic furniture and calling our mother in to look at our interior design skills. It is a dark winter. The year I am thirteen, I go to see Titanic a total of eight times. A movie ticket--at night--is five dollars. I use up all of my allowances. I beg my mother to take me. My father. I drag along my best friend Megan, who is unimpressed. I hate my hair. My skin. My clothes. I want to be like my older sister. The house where I live does its best to emulate its normal loving aura, but the truth of it is dying, and eventually death, and all the living that we're required to do after. My mother kept living, through and after her grief; we all kept living, but it's no wonder that there are whole segments of that time--months--that hold no clear memory for me.
Last night I went to see Titanic again, in the movie theater. The ticket was eleven dollars. My little sister, who is now nearly twenty, went with me. We joked as we drove to the theater; remember how many times you went to see it when it first came out? I laughed at the girl I used to be; I rolled my eyes at her adolescent naivety. Sitting in the theater though, I found myself pulled back to that long ago dark winter, and I found that I could recall, with surprising clarity, what it had felt like to escape from the house to the movie theater; I could recall the rough fabric on the seat cushions; the stick of shoe sole to dried soda; the way I could escape, could hide myself, for a few hours, in story.
I didn't consider writing as an actual pursuit until much later in my life, but when I think about it, when I am forced to pause and remember, I see that I have been writing--I have been seeking the escape of story--all my life: writing poorly worded fairy tales on legal pads in the catacombs of the public library while I waited for my mother to finish her shift at the reference desk; writing horribly cliched poems that seemed all-powerful for my high school English classes; filling journal page after journal page with my latest demoralizing angst or fleeting swell of hopefulness. It is when I recall my life thus far in this vein, that I am apt to look upon the awkward, thirteen-year-old girl in the movie theater with forgiveness. Gratitude. Thank you, I want to say, for knowing that what we needed then, in the midst of deep sorrow, was a good story. Over and over again.
Thanks for reading. (This was a long one.)
Beth
The Cynic, The Believer
I know a good woman who is embarking on what she is calling a Pilgrimage of Gratitude this April. This Pilgrimage is to be divided into four parts: past, present, future, and all that is. Each week in April, she--and inspired others--will focus gratitude towards a different part of their lives, seeking to call forth a feeling of appreciation for what the world has, does, and will grant us. It's a humble and ambitious pursuit, and I'm going to do my best to manifest or mimic some of the idea's earnest spirit as I attempt such a Pilgrimage myself.
Such a pursuit, however, challenges a great dichotomy that exists in me; the tug of war between my believer and cynic selves has long been a present battle, though the older I get, the better able I am to find and keep a place of balance between the two poles. Fervently practicing a month of outright gratitude, however, sends my cynic siren flashing. I am often overcome with gratitude for what the world has given me, for the people who surround me with their love, but rarely do I make that gratitude a tangible thing; rather, I allow the feeling to reside privately, powerfully, hoping that the energy of silent gratitude is strong enough to make itself known.
That energy is powerful, no doubt, and as a prayerful person, I'm going to continue my own personal practice of giving silent thanks, but I'm also going to practice something new, something that seeks to assuage the believer in me, the girl who wants to know more about yoga and meditation; Buddha and yin and yang energies; the universe and our small place in it, for a very small time. I'm going to practice open gratitude--for my past, my present, my future. I'm going to write about the things I've forgiven, accepted, and learned to give thanks for--here. In this space. My cynic self will be deep inside, rolling her eyes. My believer self will be happy. I'll do my best to put myself squarely in the middle, and see what emerges.
Next post: trying my best to feel gratitude for my thirteen-year-old self.
Check out this lady's Pilgrimage of Gratitude for yourself: Vital Being Wellness
Thanks for reading.
Beth
Such a pursuit, however, challenges a great dichotomy that exists in me; the tug of war between my believer and cynic selves has long been a present battle, though the older I get, the better able I am to find and keep a place of balance between the two poles. Fervently practicing a month of outright gratitude, however, sends my cynic siren flashing. I am often overcome with gratitude for what the world has given me, for the people who surround me with their love, but rarely do I make that gratitude a tangible thing; rather, I allow the feeling to reside privately, powerfully, hoping that the energy of silent gratitude is strong enough to make itself known.
That energy is powerful, no doubt, and as a prayerful person, I'm going to continue my own personal practice of giving silent thanks, but I'm also going to practice something new, something that seeks to assuage the believer in me, the girl who wants to know more about yoga and meditation; Buddha and yin and yang energies; the universe and our small place in it, for a very small time. I'm going to practice open gratitude--for my past, my present, my future. I'm going to write about the things I've forgiven, accepted, and learned to give thanks for--here. In this space. My cynic self will be deep inside, rolling her eyes. My believer self will be happy. I'll do my best to put myself squarely in the middle, and see what emerges.
Next post: trying my best to feel gratitude for my thirteen-year-old self.
Check out this lady's Pilgrimage of Gratitude for yourself: Vital Being Wellness
Thanks for reading.
Beth
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Learned Love
In the pursuit of better learning myself, and attempting to nail down, in some concrete way (if that's even possible), a greater understanding of what external forces define my happiness, I've lately found myself contemplating the things that I love that have been introduced to me through someone else in my life. Specifically, I've been contemplating those things introduced to me during the handful of love seasons I've been lucky enough to know in the last decade or so of my still young life. I often find myself curious over learned loves, more than the loves I've discovered myself, because I wonder: did I love these things because the one I loved, loved them? Or did I honestly discover things--songs, books, philosophies, foods, locations and lifestyles--that my soul had silently been yearning for?
This question was with me today as I drove the East Side highway back towards Missoula after teaching my two afternoon classes in Hamilton. I'm fortunate to have the use of a University vehicle when I make these twice-weekly trips, and even luckier still, I get a vehicle pimped out with an i-Pod hookup, something my nearly twenty-year-old pick-up-truck cannot boast. Needless to say, I work those speakers in the little red Ford Focus when it's a sunny afternoon in late March, and the highway meanders between open fields dotted with new birth, new growth, hopeful life.
As I was turning onto the stretch of road that traces, in a rather straight line, the view of the cut Bitterroot Mountains out my driver's side window, a song came on that I almost moved to skip. Just for a moment, though, and for what was long enough, I stopped myself, and listened. It had been my instinct to move past the song and on to another, because the music, in an instant, reminded me of a person and a way of life I've lost, and thus, made me remember pain. Once I'd loved the song because there was a man I'd loved who'd loved it. I listened for him, hoping to see the world, see sound, see instrument and lyric the way he did. In the season of love, I gave little thought to the idea that I might actually love the song, all on my own. I simply knew that the man loved it; therefore, I loved it too.
Let me clarify: I know myself. I know who I am. I know, at the core of my existence, what makes me whole and happiest. I would not jump off a cliff simply because my lover wanted to; I would not eat a plateful of oysters simply because my lover espoused their delicacy. I know what I like and don't like, but like most people, when I am working to get to know and understand someone, I want to give their interests and passions due diligence; I seek to figure them out by experiencing that which gives them joy. Is not love the pursuit of understanding, admiration, acceptance, and communion? Do we not reach these states by opening our minds to the perspectives and emotions and passions of others? I believe so.
A strange thing happened to me as I continued to listen to this song; I felt as if some small part of me was becoming quenched after a season of dryness. I loved these sounds, this low tone, this vibration of note, that extended lyric. I loved it. The song still reminded me of the person and life I'd lost--and I believe that it always will, but I also believe that that reminding is a great blessing: in the seasons of love I've yet known, one hundred and more loves have come my way, brought before me by good men.
What the world has to offer is owned by none. One man, he taught me ocean tides, but the tides are not his; they offer themselves to be loved by anyone, purely. Another man, he taught me mountains. Long I'd gazed after them, been comforted by them, been home among them; now I know them in greater intricacy, and how in love I am. They belong to none but everyone.
Maine. Mountain peaks. The strum of a shy guitar. The punch of fist to risen dough. The scent of wood smoke. A neatly stacked wood pile. Nag Champa. Lobster claws. Clean cut of wood; well sanded and smoothed. Hamburgers and sweet potato fries. Fleet Foxes. Townes Van Zandt. Early to bed. Early to rise. Sleep atop a mountain; climb down in the morning light.
All this life, available to love, learned from another. I am forever grateful.
Thanks for reading.
Beth
This question was with me today as I drove the East Side highway back towards Missoula after teaching my two afternoon classes in Hamilton. I'm fortunate to have the use of a University vehicle when I make these twice-weekly trips, and even luckier still, I get a vehicle pimped out with an i-Pod hookup, something my nearly twenty-year-old pick-up-truck cannot boast. Needless to say, I work those speakers in the little red Ford Focus when it's a sunny afternoon in late March, and the highway meanders between open fields dotted with new birth, new growth, hopeful life.
As I was turning onto the stretch of road that traces, in a rather straight line, the view of the cut Bitterroot Mountains out my driver's side window, a song came on that I almost moved to skip. Just for a moment, though, and for what was long enough, I stopped myself, and listened. It had been my instinct to move past the song and on to another, because the music, in an instant, reminded me of a person and a way of life I've lost, and thus, made me remember pain. Once I'd loved the song because there was a man I'd loved who'd loved it. I listened for him, hoping to see the world, see sound, see instrument and lyric the way he did. In the season of love, I gave little thought to the idea that I might actually love the song, all on my own. I simply knew that the man loved it; therefore, I loved it too.
Let me clarify: I know myself. I know who I am. I know, at the core of my existence, what makes me whole and happiest. I would not jump off a cliff simply because my lover wanted to; I would not eat a plateful of oysters simply because my lover espoused their delicacy. I know what I like and don't like, but like most people, when I am working to get to know and understand someone, I want to give their interests and passions due diligence; I seek to figure them out by experiencing that which gives them joy. Is not love the pursuit of understanding, admiration, acceptance, and communion? Do we not reach these states by opening our minds to the perspectives and emotions and passions of others? I believe so.
A strange thing happened to me as I continued to listen to this song; I felt as if some small part of me was becoming quenched after a season of dryness. I loved these sounds, this low tone, this vibration of note, that extended lyric. I loved it. The song still reminded me of the person and life I'd lost--and I believe that it always will, but I also believe that that reminding is a great blessing: in the seasons of love I've yet known, one hundred and more loves have come my way, brought before me by good men.
What the world has to offer is owned by none. One man, he taught me ocean tides, but the tides are not his; they offer themselves to be loved by anyone, purely. Another man, he taught me mountains. Long I'd gazed after them, been comforted by them, been home among them; now I know them in greater intricacy, and how in love I am. They belong to none but everyone.
Maine. Mountain peaks. The strum of a shy guitar. The punch of fist to risen dough. The scent of wood smoke. A neatly stacked wood pile. Nag Champa. Lobster claws. Clean cut of wood; well sanded and smoothed. Hamburgers and sweet potato fries. Fleet Foxes. Townes Van Zandt. Early to bed. Early to rise. Sleep atop a mountain; climb down in the morning light.
All this life, available to love, learned from another. I am forever grateful.
Thanks for reading.
Beth
Monday, March 26, 2012
City, brimming.
Washington D.C. is full to brimming: Tulips. Daffodils. Gnarled Magnolia limbs with waxy white and scarlet petals. Hundreds of pink blossomed trees. Blossoms overhead, still unfurling, still clinging. Fallen blossoms underfoot on wet cement and asphalt, on the sheen of windshields and the black grooves of car tires; the newest hue is cherry blossom pink. Everything, everything, a carpet, an emergence, of lush, new, life. The slender tree that grows from the bricked patio outside my sister and her fiance's apartment is two lives at once: brown branch and magenta bloom--one gives something necessary to the other: a grounding force, a flourish of hopeful birth. In this place, I remember: humidity. My hair follicles swell, my skin becomes dewy, my running clothes are slow to relinquish their dampness. It is not yet the difficult season, when humidity meets heat, so I am able to know this swollen air with fondness; I let it quench the dryness that a Montana winter has bestowed. No more nosebleeds here. No more cracked skin.
Washington D.C. is full to brimming: People. Men in clean suits, their shoes polished mirrors. Women in heels and dresses. They know where they are going: this train track, that bus stop, that corner, this crossing. Everyone knows how to rush: keep moving, don't look up, don't apologize, go your own way. After three days I am better at following my sister's small force through the crowd, but I still fear the grate of the escalator, imagining a tumble and metal teeth on the skin of my forehead, a stinging humiliation worse than struck limbs. I hold on to the railing; I try to look as if I know what I am doing. Amidst this mad push, it is easy for me to let loose my judgment; I want people to stop honking, to stop forcing their way through, to look where they are going, to smile in passing. Sometimes this happens, but more often the goal amidst the chaos seems to simply be the destination, the getting done, the surviving. The greatest loneliness is felt in the full room, the throng and bustle. Yet in the bustle I have found connection: the woman at the corner table in the restaurant has a laugh like my mother's. The man sitting across from me on the D2 bus is reading the novel I loved last July. The girl standing on the street corner wears the dress I admired in the storefront window. Every single racing soul takes heart at the trees in bloom, at their pathway now strewn with petals. In the crush of the hurried life, these small relations--notice them, keep them. Call them shared life. Call them blessed. Know them to be before you for a reason.
Washington D.C. is full to brimming: People. Men in clean suits, their shoes polished mirrors. Women in heels and dresses. They know where they are going: this train track, that bus stop, that corner, this crossing. Everyone knows how to rush: keep moving, don't look up, don't apologize, go your own way. After three days I am better at following my sister's small force through the crowd, but I still fear the grate of the escalator, imagining a tumble and metal teeth on the skin of my forehead, a stinging humiliation worse than struck limbs. I hold on to the railing; I try to look as if I know what I am doing. Amidst this mad push, it is easy for me to let loose my judgment; I want people to stop honking, to stop forcing their way through, to look where they are going, to smile in passing. Sometimes this happens, but more often the goal amidst the chaos seems to simply be the destination, the getting done, the surviving. The greatest loneliness is felt in the full room, the throng and bustle. Yet in the bustle I have found connection: the woman at the corner table in the restaurant has a laugh like my mother's. The man sitting across from me on the D2 bus is reading the novel I loved last July. The girl standing on the street corner wears the dress I admired in the storefront window. Every single racing soul takes heart at the trees in bloom, at their pathway now strewn with petals. In the crush of the hurried life, these small relations--notice them, keep them. Call them shared life. Call them blessed. Know them to be before you for a reason.
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