poetry thursday

in the morning

for mary

it was my first poetry reading
i, a reluctant 7 year old attendee
standing in my jockeys as my sister,
her mouth twisting violently
around Dunbar’s dialectic verse,
screeched "lias, lias, bless de lawd"

at eight, my sister lacked subtlety
screaming lines without attention to timbre or tone,
commas & hyphens caused her no pause
she was, as instructed, projecting,
loud enough for her voice to bounce
off the rear of draper elementary’s auditorium
& to wake the deceased & resting Dunbar
a shrill fisherwoman’s delivery for a future audience

shut up, i muttered, through sleepy eyes
as my sister switched to Langston’s poem,
"life for me ain’t been no crystal stair"
her head rocking with emphasis & joy at my annoyance
i heard these two poems ricochet off the walls of our home
no less than five thousand times in a truncated February

my friends came to my home often,
looking for this kid named lias, who caused my sister
to scream with madness every waking hour
& searching in vain for the crystals in our stairs
by the time my sister had her official reading
our entire family was reciting both poems
like brainwashed idiots

thirty years later, it is me
annoying my family with verse and stanza
casting my life by the poems coursing my veins
while my sister’s life has become the jagged minstrel
that identify Dunbar’s lyrics
her song marked by the erratic meter
of an addict’s rhyme as she fills her lungs
with the shattered remains of a descending crystal stair

now i recite poems that beg her to live,
that implore her to be as tenacious in her search
for rhythm & meaning as the little girl
who lit up our home with sweet black words
who Langston warned and Dunbar amused

in the morning,
i pray for the blessing of any lord
for some lyrical benediction
to heal her cacophonous wounds
& make whole again the little girl,
who clings to sonnets & sobriety.

Kenneth Carroll

Right now, my deciding factor for Poetry Thursday is "poems that make me gasp out loud." And this one did. It also made me laugh out loud and invited little pinpricks of tears to tap at the back of my eyes.

If you would like to share a poem, one that speaks to you...makes you gasp out loud, please post it to your blog. And then you can email me and I will post a link to your blog in a new sidebar heading of Poetry Thursday participants. If you do not have a blog and want to post a poem, please feel free to post it in the comments here.

Let the poetry readings begin...

a transition

in the last couple of weeks, i have jettisoned from the blogger closet. no longer anonymous. when i first started this blog, i wasn't sure if i would share it with anyone but my husband. i didn't expect that anyone would really read it. i think a lot of us start that way don't we? my posts felt so anonymous. who would ever read these words? but i started leaving comments at the blogs i had been reading for several months. then michelle stopped by. my very first comment (thank you michelle). and then she stopped by again. and then a few others stopped by and left their comments. and suddenly people i had never met were reading the words i put out there into the universe every day.

i shared the link with a few people in my "real" life. people i felt would not judge. (or thought wouldn't. one friend shocked me with his words about how simple and trite my thoughts seemed.) no one from my real life really let me know if they were reading. and that was okay. and because of that, i still felt very anonymous.

a few weeks ago, i realized that i felt a bit of a disconnect between my day to day life and the fact that writing here has become so important to me. i wanted to share this aspect of my journey with the people who have known me for a while. i began to share the link to this little page out here in cyberspace with more friends. and also my mom. i am no longer anonymous. i have no control over who is reading my blog, what they will think. so now i feel like i am in a bit of a transition period. trying not to censor myself, and i don't think i am, and letting go of the worries of this decision. letting my blog world and my real world become, simply, my world.

i have, though, been thinking about the questions my friends and family may have about this blog medium. and why i do this. why i come to this blank page almost every day and share thoughts, ideas, silliness, sadness...so here is a little q & a for you...

Why did I start this blog?
last summer i attended a retreat and through an exercise at the retreat, i ended up writing about what my work is/what i want it to be. i wrote more about this here. part of what i wrote was this: my work is to create peace around me and to write about true things, feelings, and moments so that others will know they are not alone.
i had no idea how i was going to do this. all i knew was that i wanted to write and share. i had been reading several blogs for a few months, but it didn't even cross my mind to start my own. and then one day it did. and this hope became a reality. this is why i read blogs; this is why i have one. this journey through life is difficult and beautiful and crazy and hard. and it is nice to know that there are other people out there, all over the world, doing the best they can just like me. they are pursuing dreams they had forgotten about. finding their true selves. finding a spiritual path. creating, writing, painting, dancing, drawing. raising children. helping others. learning how to love themselves. finding laughter in the midst of grief. reconnecting with the person they once were. doing the best they can. and to be able to connect with them...well, that is just a miracle really.

Am I going to mention my friends and family on my blog?
again, the anonymity piece. when i first started writing here, i didn't think friends or family would see this blog. then i thought i might have a rule where i wouldn't mention them unless i asked first. now i feel this way: this is not a place where i will vent or make fun or purposefully cause another pain. this is not be my intention. i will not share the secrets of others, only my own. because my journey involves my friends and family, they may come up (and if you have been reading for a while, you know i have posted about my family). if i share about you it is because you are a part of my life and i love you. it is that simple. but this may mean that i share my struggles sometimes. i won't be posting specifics, no one will be able to "find you" through my blog (unless they already know you).

How do comments work?
ahhh...comments. yes. the ultimate exercise for the ego. comments are wonderful. thank you thank you thank you for the comments. however, the ego sometimes becomes a bit too involved. the "guess what? 20 comments today!" ego. if you feel moved to leave a comment, i appreciate it because then i know you are out there in your corner of the world, visiting me in mine. but don't feel pressure to leave one. i sometimes get wrapped up in "oh no, i did not visit all the blogs i read today/this weekend/this week. are they going to hate me because i didn't comment? will they not come back to visit me if i miss a week?" i am learning to let that go. please let it go too.

and if you have been stopping by here every now and then for a while you might wonder: Am I really still reading the summer of the great-grandmother?
ok no. i wish i was. i had to turn it back into the library when i was halfway through it. yes, i know it has been up there on the sidebar for two months. i want to be reading it, that is why it is there. i will try to do a better job of posting the current books i am reading. especially since i have read several since then.

Are there any other questions floating around out there? If yes, leave me a comment (hee, hee) and I will answer them. Thanks for stopping by my friends...from both worlds...thank you.

{SPT} the me who is a pirate

My eyes.
This is what I answer if asked the odd question: what is your favorite part of your body?
My eyes.
For they are not fat. And fat is how I see the rest of me.
But here is the top secret truth: my left eye is the most "flawed" part of my body.
A flaw I cannot fix.
My flaw not too many people know about.
My left eye does not turn to the left. Not even a little bit.
"No it is not a lazy eye." The answer to the question I am always asked.
"But I have never noticed" is what is said next.
Right. You haven't. Because my parents were amazing.
My mother did not want me to feel different.
She taught me to turn my head.
For a little while I wore an eye patch as a child.
A pirate at three.
When I need to see something to the left,
I turn my head.
It is that simple.
So you never notice. And I don't really think about it....
unless...

I am in fourth grade, and the doctors and my parents decide that surgery is a good idea. To move my eye forward, for cosmetic reasons, to make sure that it will not move as I age and take a look around and just see what they find. A teaching hospital. Let's just see if maybe we might be able to do something. I am easily bribed by the promise of a cabbage patch kid with a tooth. But would I have agreed if I would have known the torment a fourth grade classmate would provide during my healing process? "Your eye is all red. Gross." For weeks the redness does not go away. For weeks his words torment me. I wear my mom's sunglasses for the first few days hoping no one will notice the redness. But who doesn't notice the fourth grader in adult sunglasses? (I chuckle through tears as I write that.) I do not want to miss any school. I already missed two weeks at the beginning of the year, I love my teacher, I love reading Caddie Woodlawn, I will not miss any more days.

I am 15 and studying genetics in Biology. This is my favorite part of this class so far. I love punnett squares. On this day, we spend the hour talking about genetic mutations. Mutants. I have never thought about the possibility that my eye is a result of a genetic mutation. A little part of me almost dies that day as I think about Darwin and evolution and the idea that the mutants are not wanted. I talk to my teacher after class, wanting to understand why we would use the word mutation when talking about a person's genes. He is very kind.

I am 22 and have been out with a friend. Someone I feel comfortable with. I am walking to my car, and she calls my name. My eyes are focused on my car as I turn around quickly. I hear, "God, what is wrong with your eyes?" Because my eyes were focused on one thing, but my brain said, "turn back around," she noticed my eye. I can still hear her voice. Loud. Harsh. Cruel. Confused.

I am 25 and realize that I might need glasses for distance. I do not want to go to the eye doctor. I have not been since I was a child. I decide to go to an opthalmologist because maybe he will have seen this before and not be weird about it. As I make the appointment, I explain "my left eye has duane's retraction syndrome. But that is not why I am making the appointment. I am making the appointment because I think I need glasses." "What is that? How do you spell that?" I have to explain. Fine. Still, I hope it won't be weird. But when I get there, I have to see a young woman first. Someone who has not seen this before. Someone who did not know what it means on my chart. Someone who does not know how to react when my eye does not turn. Yes, I know I look normal. But this is what happens when you say, "please follow my pen with your eyes." And when the doctor comes in, "Well, you are quite the celebrity today. Quite a buzz about you in this office. Most of these people have never seen this before, and I have only seen it in books." But I don't want to be a celebrity. I just want to know if I need glasses. I wonder, were those my eyes in the book? Could be, because they took pictures when I was a child. I do not want to follow the pen, the light, your finger to the left over and over again so you can see my eye not turn.

I am 29. And I finally realize my favorite part of this story. The support of family when I was younger. The support, to be honest, that I don't really remember because I never felt different, never noticed my eye, never had trouble reading, seeing, playing, and so on...the support that happened before my memories really began. The support that caused me to have to think about which eye had the problem because I never noticed it growing up. The support that began as soon as my parents realized something was wrong. I imagine the fear and confusion they must have felt. "What is wrong with her eye? What is happening? What did we do? Can she use it? Will she read? What do we do?" But they did something. They did not ignore it. Hours holding the red apple is front of me and teaching me to turn my head. And support from my grandfather through his offer to see if the doctors could take the muscle from his left eye. He was born with mostly blindness in that eye and wanted to give me any parts of his eye that would work and help me not be different. Not a possibility but the offer of the gift is even greater than actually receiving it.

They said I wouldn't read or wouldn't read very well. My mother did not believe them. She spent hours doing what she could to help me realize that I was in control of my eyes, how I would turn my head, how I would see things. I wore the eye patch for a few months so that I would turn my head. It became so automatic that the eye patch was not needed, and it was almost like the eye patch became invisible. She taught me to turn my head so that I would embrace this flaw. This flaw I never really think about because it does not affect me. They said I wouldn't read very well. But I read for a living...hmmm...guess they are not always right.

I would not change it. I know this secret that I hold. I am a pirate who travels the world through the books that live on the shelves in my home. A pirate who can see it all...

see more "all of me" posts on self portrait tuesday

edited on 5/27/07 to add: if you have arrived at this post because you or your child (or someone else close to you) has duane's retraction syndrome, please feel free to email me at waywardtulip at gmail dot com. and, if i could give parents words of wisdom from my experiences, i would say this: if you can afford for your child to have surgery to help with the movement and appearance of the eye (even if it is only cosmetically), do so. i believe that part of the reason i have been able to embrace this "pirate" in me is because visually, others do not notice that there is a problem with my eye. as a result, duane's did not affect my self-esteem about how i look. people might try to tell you that the surgery isn't necessary. but life is hard enough without feeling like you look different than others.

like a wayward tulip

I could stand tall, firm, with the group
try to raise my head above the others.
Or maybe find my supple self and bend
discover another path.
Breathe, find the curve of my spine.
Breathe, open my eyes.
Like a wayward tulip
looking for a new view,
another window from which to see the world.

{AW} check-in

I am behind. Again. An unexpected surge in editing work (which is good) has kept me working more than anticipated so I am juggling the many other things in my life. Still, I hate being "behind" again. I always turned my homework in on time! Maybe this is becoming more of an exercise of letting that need for perfection go and still do the pieces that I can. I also think that I might be behind because in the sidebar for this week's chapter Cameron tells us we will discuss money. Money is not a topic I enjoy. Abundance is though. So maybe I am manifesting some abundance through all this work this week...

The artist dates remain one of my favorite parts of the process (and one I can do even if I am behind). This week I planned on taking the $5 my grandpa sent me for Valentine's Day (as he and my grandma have done every year since I can remember) to the dollar store Friday to see what I could find. But life (and illness) interrupted. So today, as a trip out of the house, I took Jon on my artist's date to the dollar store. With rules...er...suggestions. We were each going to wander around the store (my grandpa sent him $5 too) for about 15 minutes. Ignoring each other. And then meet up at the cash register with our finds. But these finds had to be something to feed our creative soul. (read: not stuff for work.) It was fun! I found neat pencils, alphabet stickers, and superballs (to remind me of this). Jon found superman and mighty mouse cartoon dvds and teenage mutant ninja stickers (that might be for school but at least they are not serious). I could have spent more than $5 but stuck to my plan. And yes, I promise to go on my artist date alone next week.

Thank you all for your kind words and positive energy you sent our way after jon's health scare the other night. He is still feeling "puny," as my grandmother would say, but is much better.

poetry thursdays

My plan was to post this much earlier...but I spent the evening at an urgent care center at the hospital with my husband. He is fine. Still, some scary moments...He is fine. He had to have a CAT scan. He is fine. I appreciate the kindess of doctors and nurses on an evening like tonight. A thank you from my heart to those of you who take care of others in this way.

I have a new idea. Poetry Thursdays.
An invitation to read a new poem or an old favorite.
An invitation to take the poem with you to the bathtub to have your own poetry reading.
An invitation to rediscover a poem that you love and share it with others.
An invitation to write a poem. Yes, you. Write. A. Poem.
An invitation to look at the world from another's perspective.
An invitation to let words resonate within you.

And I plan to extend this invitation through sharing a different poem each week. One I have discovered on this journey into poetry that I find myself on this year.

I read this one out loud to jonny tonight as we were waiting for the doctor to come back to tell us the plan...

Many Miles

The feet of the heron,
under those bamboo stems,
hold the blue body,
the great beak

above the shallows
of the pond.
Who could guess
their patience?

Sometimes the toes
shake, like worms.
What fish
could resist?

Or think of the cricket,
his green hooks
climbing the blade of grass-
or think of camel feet

like ear muffs,
striding over the sand-
or think of your own
slapping along the highway,

a long life,
many miles.
To each of us comes
the body gift.

- Mary Oliver

now.

I love the question Alexandra has asked: what do you know that you don't want to know?
And I realize. I want to know it all. Even the shit. (yes I just put that word out into the universe)
There are moments when I think "why me? why is this happening? this was not at all what I imagined or hoped for or dreamed of." Yet, it is clear that this is how it was supposed to be. Because now I am here. Armed with all of this knowledge, experience, and the realization that the tools to deal with the shit have been in me all along. I know I will forget this over and over again. This is how it works. I believe the big lessons in our life exist on a timeline and sometimes we get caught up in a loop of the lesson. I suppose that there are times that this loop could last a lifetime...but I think of it like this: You move along and then something trips you up, so you are caught up in the loop of the lesson. You loop around and around for a while...then you eventually learn this piece of the lesson and continue on again. Until you trip. Then another loop and so on. The funny thing is that even when you realize this, you still trip. Even when you are in the loop, you can't or don't get off. Even when you know you are in the midst of a lesson, it is still hard to learn. But you have the tools inside you to help the upsidedown world of spinning in the loop seem a little more rightsideup.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like me. Alive. Awake. I don't want to go to sleep and miss my life. I don't want to look back and think, "why didn't I do something?" And so I want to do something with all the lessons. I am figuring out what that is...but I know that I want to do something.

Again, I'm within my self.
I walked away, but here I come sailing back,
feet in the air, upsidedown,
as a saint when he opens his eyes
from prayer: Now. The room,
the tablecloth, familiar faces.
- Rumi

{SPT} the me before i feel

Before I feel
Before I talk with anyone
Before I clear my head
or wipe the sleep from my eyes
and the dried drool from the corner of my mouth

Before I breathe in and out with intention
Before I stretch my back in cobra pose
Before I take a shower
or put on my clothes
and paint my face and brush my hair

Before I energize my body with food
Before I check my email
Before I start my work
or organize my schedule
and begin to read the words written by others

I walk out to the living room
Sit down at the table
And take this picture

I breathe in vulnerability
and exhale self-acceptance

This is me
The me before I begin to feel
Before I remember who I am

All I ask is that if you encounter this me
Please be gentle
I will begin to feel soon enough