Category: Show & Tell

I found this thing for you to see…

Day 133: One Day

Day 133: One Day


I used to work for a priest. He was an inspired man. He was passionate about leading and loving, he was injured and recovered and empathic to those still hurting, and he was horrid at keeping a schedule. When I left the church, he gave me a book, signed in love, that I put on a shelf and never read.

It’s a funny thing about resting on Islands, you dust off and look at things that’ve always been with you but haven’t been seen.

The book is one of poetry. It’s a collection of sacred voices from the East and West, calling out…

There is a woman whose writings are absolutely haunting me.

I guess that’s what good poetry does.

Her name is Rabia. She was an Islamic saint who lived in the 8th century. I like to think about that; she was born exactly 1300 years ago, in a time and religion and culture that are completely foreign to me, yet her words resonate as if they were my own.

It is said that she was separated from her parents at a young age, was stolen, and sold into slavery. A brothel bought her where she worked until she was 50 years old and was given her freedom by a rich patron. “The remaining years of her life were devoted to mediation and prayer, and she would often see visitors seeking guidance about their lives.”¹

There are a handful of poems here that I would consider my “good thing” today, but the one that gets me the most follows…

It’s brevity is magical. How can so few words fill up the entire sky with image, meaning, and knowing?

Take a breath,
clear your mind,
and hear:

 


ONE DAY

One day He did not leave after
kissing
me.


 

Day133_One Day

 


¹ From Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinsky

Day 125: Framing Things, Part 1

Day 125: Framing Things, Part 1

I’ve had special little pieces of art hiding about my house for years, waiting to be framed. Some are not so much “high art,” but they make me happy whenever I see them. I’ve decided I want to see them more often, and visiting my “to-be-framed-and-hung-eventually” drawer is no longer sufficient.

Carpe Diem.
(Seize the wall.)

One said piece (and this is high art), is the underside of a book jacket. The book is As You Wish by Cary Elwes, and is a reflection on the filming and aftermath of the almost 30-year-old movie, The Princess Bride.

I love this movie. I loved it when I saw it in the theatre with my mom, I loved it when I watched it as an almost married woman, and I loved it when I watched it with my kids. I never really knew why, exactly, and I’m sure the why has changed over the years, but now? Now, I love it because it reminds me what it’s like to be lost in a story of epic romance and stupid dumb odds.

Sometimes, it’s too easy to get lost in the Fred Savage way of thinking, and focus on reality: the nuts and bolts of relationship, the facts that don’t measure up in love, the ridiculousness of still hoping when hope is a fool’s hiccup. I got lost under those covers, and it did feel like a bad head cold.

There is still and always something inside a romantic’s heart (I suppose I’m admitting I have one) that knows connection across time and space is possible. There is no amount of age or damage through the days that can take that knowledge away, unless you let it.

I don’t want to let the years wear that cornerstone down.

I’m gonna hang this on my wall to remind me they don’t have to.

Metaphorically speaking, I find it ironic that I never hung this because it didn’t fit any frames I owned or could buy.

No. Epic love is like that.

Custom made and hard to find.

 

 Day125_As You Wish


Day 104: Blind Mama

Day 104: Blind Mama


I saw her like you see a shooting star;
something moving out of context with the rest,
breaking the cadence built around her,
and shining brighter,
and trailing longer,
and absolutely impossible to take your eyes off of.

 

Blonde hair, braided neatly,
brown paper bag and groceries inside,
steady pace and sturdy,
with her ruddy babe along for the ride.

 

A child of three,
telling all that he saw,
strapped to her back
in the catbird seat;
high and connected
to the sway of her gate
and the snap of her feet.

 

He reported with his eyes what hers could not see

as her long, white cane kept meticulous beat.

 

Though my eyes could move and follow them walking,
my other else froze:
I stopped planning, stopped talking.

 

And I saw.

 

My mother, me,
our mother’s before us,
in blindness we carry
and join the deep chorus
that sings for the children
we heave to our backs;
pray fate will atone
for all that we lack.
We bear our sweet poundage
with industrious might
and lead to tomorrow
though we step without sight.

 

Today, on the street,
my heart ached and took flight
‘cause I saw two shooting stars
in broad daylight.

 

Day104_BlindMama

Day 7: Battle Song & War Cry

Day 7: Battle Song & War Cry

Confession:

I am the lady in the car with earbuds in, belting lyrics at the top of her voice with great, emotional vigor. Many of you know me to be a rather reserved and somewhat composed woman.
You have seen my seedy underbelly.

 

Some time ago, a friend sent me this song…

…and it made me want to go to war.

 

Not the kill-people, conquer-lands kind of war, but the break-bonds, aim-high kind of war.

I listen to it, sometimes multiple times a day, as a sort of Battle Song. It summons a strength in me to keep moving, and makes my progress swift. (Especially when it gets all dance-remixey and crazy-rhythm-cool about 2 minutes in.)

The song is in Gaelic. (I do not speak Gaelic, mind you, so the belting in the car is made abundantly more comical by my enthusiastic attempt to pronounce words that have no meaning to me.) I war cry the bejeezus out of it.

Here’s where it gets cool:

I finally decided to figure out what I was singing (or attempting to sing). This could be a song about terrorizing nations and slaughtering the masses and here I am, joining the parade… no good.

But here’s the first verse, in English:

“Hail, oh woman, who was so afflicted,
It was our ruin that you were in chains,
Our fine land in the possession of thieves…
While you were sold to the foreigners!
Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Now that summer’s coming!”

We can metaphor this to death, but I think it’s fairly obvious I now sing even louder.

 

What’s your Battle Song?
Have you heard your War Cry?