INNER ADVENTURING

We got together with a bunch of dear, good friends on Saturday night.  We call ourselves "The Tribe".  It was a potluck gathering full of amazingly good food, lighthearted conversation, and lots of laughter.   Over dinner the conversation went in the direction of people sharing tales of their outdoor adventures -- the things they love to do, where they've done them, where they hope to do more of it.  Hiking, biking, camping, snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking, skiing, snowboarding, boating; travels done or hoped for in the US, Europe, South America, Central America, SE Asia, China, India.

Regular readers of my blog will know how quiet I could have been during this conversation.   I do not particularly like outdoor adventuring, nor traveling.  This puts me in a club of severely limited membership in the Pacific Northwest where passions for these things seem to be a given.  (I fit with the bookstore/coffee shop crowd, who also are a common sight here, but most are just stopping by there in between adventures.)

In order to participate in the conversation, I joined in with my usual self-deprecating jokiness about my lack of Adventuring Gene, with a throw-away, dismissive comment aimed at myself about all of the things they love as something I would never do.  It was funny.  I laughed.  Everyone laughed.  I knew I was violating my therapist's admonition about putting myself down, but I thought I had a good handle on it.  Still, I ended up feeling like the "odd" woman out and not altogether great about it.  But not terrible either.  I thought I'd pulled it off.

Later in the evening the conversation took a turn toward touching on "the divorce".  Not mine and Hub's, but mine with my church.  (Again, I've written about this before, so I won't go into the details here, suffice to say, we split up last August.)  It has been a hard ten months since we parted.  Many don't understand why, many don't care, some hope we will reconcile, almost none understand the depth of hurt and introspection that has gone into diving deep inside myself to figure out how it happened, where I was culpable in the conflict, how we all might have behaved differently, whether I made the right decision, and why I cannot go back to a "partner" I still see as a bit dysfunctional, and with whom I have less and less in common...or at least not a common vision.  I'm trying to move on and find connections in a new and healthier way.   There ended up being maybe a teeny tiny bit of passion around expressing this at the social gathering.  I may have used the "F" word.

Debriefing with Hub the next morning, I allowed that I still seem to have a lot of pain and anger around the divorce and I need to do some more inner work to heal that negativity.  I said that the way I live my inner life, with my constant rumination, seeking to understand situations, other people, and mostly myself on a deep level are every bit as hard as climbing a mountain trail, dammit!  My "adventures" are of an internal nature!

The analogy struck a chord with me.  I realized I have nothing to feel inferior about, nothing to apologize for, if I don't do the "nature challenge" others so enjoy.  My challenges come in the form of deep personal work and the summit I am aiming for is increased self-knowledge, inner peace, compassion and "capital L" Love.

Feeling inspired, I sat down and wrote this poem:

THE ADVENTURER

I ford the river of tears

Climb from the depths of despair

Stumble over jagged rocks of doubt

Lose my way

Each step forward a small victory

Each boot stuck in a muddy rut another defeat

Clouds gather, burst

Cold sleet runs down my neck, chilling me to the bone

Will I ever see the sun?  Hear the birdsong?

Look up at a sky so blue, so clear that all pain is lost in its vast expanse?

I keep the vision close to my heart, the possibility of healing, the promise of joy.

One more step forward, one more slide back, heart muscles aching, breath ragged.

It is a lonely journey, the curved path treacherous, ascent steep

I long for sleep, for rest, for peace

It comes in welcome respite ‘round the night fires

Where other faces emerge from the dark, brother traveler, sister wanderer

Stirring the dying embers, finding warmth, feeling strength return

Awake to another day on the trail ahead

Perhaps this is the day

Perhaps this is the hour

Perhaps this is the moment 

When the summit is reached 

And all the world will lay below me

Dazzling like the jewel that is my life

To live, to love, to be.

****

You take the outer journey, I'll take the inner.  I'll meet you where our paths converge.

At least, that's the view from here...©

A LONGING TO DRIFT

I had been awake about ten minutes this morning, still laying quietly and appreciating the blue sky view and sunshine streaming in our bedroom window when Hub rolled over, sleepy-eyed, and asked what my plans were for the day....

Plans?  At that moment, still in a dawn daze, it was as if he was speaking a language I didn't understand, but of course I knew immediately what he wanted to know.  What will our day look like, together or apart?  Busy or lazy?  Productive or sort of wasted?  He is a championship planner and after nearly 43 years of marriage, so am I.

But my preferred mode of transport through the day is a slow meander -- I call it drifting.  Unless I have something scheduled (which is a lot of the time, to my dismay, but much less frequently that I used to) I love just seeing what my mind and spirit have in store for me as long hours of a new day stretch before me.  There is a lot of this when Hub is away, but when he's home I feel some obligation to be more intentional with my time.  And as in any relationship there is the dance of negotiation and accommodation to another's rhythms.

As usual, I got up, dressed, headed downstairs for my first cup of coffee and a peek at email, online news, and Facebook.  It's my morning routine for waking up to the world.  Then I puttered 'round the kitchen, found an article I wanted from an old newspaper, did a few dishes.  I went to the laundry room and sorted clothes, threw a load in the washer.  Back in the kitchen I wondered what I might make for Family Dinner this week and put that thought on hold since I hate meal planning and cooking....."Later..."

My eyes fell on a new book of poetry by Billy Collins and I grabbed it off the desk and walked to the living room.  Looking out our big window I stood for several long minutes just taking in the view -- fog settled lazily over the river valley, mountains to the east and north peeking up through the mist, sun shining on the bay, a new ship in port stacked high with bright orange containers ready to offload onto rail cars.

My gaze drifting to the birds at my front yard feeders made me smile with the recollection of yesterday morning when Angel and I sat for at least 30 minutes in front of the window, Birds of the Northwest book in front of us (she calls it the Hummingbird Book), identifying as many feeder birds as we could.  She was so excited to find a bird in the book that matched one at the feeder -- Pine Siskens, House Wrens, Junco's, Spotted Towhees and, yes, Hummingbirds.   It was a moment in time that I will always treasure -- spontaneous and timeless.

Finally I opened Collins and settled in on the sofa, randomly flipping through the book to  delight in poem after poem, marveling at his skill with language and imagery.   I scolded myself for spending so much time on tasks and responsibilities and commitments and so relatively little on pursuing and honing creative pursuits.

But the attic needs to be cleaned and organized so I can finally put away the bins of Christmas decorations.  And the yard is a mess of twigs, dead leaves, and growing weeds as it comes awake after winter's wet gloom.  The floors need vacuuming, the toilets need scrubbing, and the ongoing tasks of the church Stewardship Steering Committee need to be prioritized every day for the next month or so.

With these thoughts pushing to the 'fore I got up, closed the poetry book and came to my office to write this post as a transition from my morning drift to the day's steady tick-tick-ticking away of minutes and hours spent in productive activity.  Tonight I'll look back at my to-do list with items crossed off and feel a sense of accomplishment.  But I'll also lament that my "drifting" time seems so short and, consequently, so precious.

At least, that's the view from here....

JACK WAS NIMBLE

I am having people over on Saturday.   I should be cleaning, shopping, getting ready.  But that's not what Jack would do if he could be writing instead.  That's what I tell myself.  I don't really know what Jack would do.  I didn't know him that well.  I didn't know him much at all, really, other than the "public" Jack who stood on stage and mesmerized us with his words.

Jack McCarthy, Stand-Up Poet.  That's what he called himself.  He showed up at our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship a number of years ago and hung out.  Sat sort of towards the back, slouching a bit at the end of the row, when he came to Sunday service.  Didn't say much.  I heard he was some sort of poet, so I was immediately intimidated and bestowed upon him all sorts of magical powers he probably didn't possess.

Then he started performing his poetry at local coffee houses.  And organized Invitational Poetry Slams at our Fellowship -- got all the best local poets to come and compete.  Local poets who had already made names for themselves in National and International Slam Poetry competitions.  I was completely and utterly blown away.  The raw power, the amazing stringing together of words that created image and emotion, told a 3 minute story that often stayed with me for days and weeks.  I became a FanGirl of Slam Poetry.

What I later learned about Jack was that he was legend in the Slam community, first at his home base in Boston, then the Northwest and points in between.  He was the "old guy" who hung with the 20-somethings and mentored them, shared space with them, competed with them.  And they loved him.  We all did.  He could make you laugh until you cried, then cry only because the next three lines of his poem were so poignant there was no other choice.  Following the flow of his words was like watching a kite fly in a blue sky, swirling, soaring, diving, reviving.

When he decided to teach a performance poetry class at our Fellowship I was the first to sign up.  I was elated.  I wanted to see if I could in any way produce that magic too.  I used to have dreams of writing. Not "daydreams", actual nighttime lucid dreams in which I wrote the most amazing things -- all kinds of writing -- and I'd know in my dream that it was real, that I was doing it, but the moment I came back to this world, the words drifted slowly away and were lost.   Still, I had never thought of myself as a writer.  I wrote. Yet to say "I'm a writer" was too big.  But Jack taught me otherwise.

The first thing he said at the first class was, "If you say you are a poet, you're a poet."  And with that out of the way, he showed us how to be better poets.  And encouraged us to keep learning, practicing, just doing it.  He was a "performance poet" where the verbalization of the words he wrote were as important as the words themselves.  I loved that.

Every class we were asked to come up to the front and read/perform a poem.   Being externally motivated and used to "teacher-pleasing" I always read with the hope of getting Jack's "atta-girl".  I was usually disappointed.  His response to a reading was usually a non-committal comment, but nothing like accolade, although he was very kind to one very bad poet and I loved him for that.  Once he even pointed out to the group that one poem I read was a good example of spotting a beginner poet, those who always seem to write about the craft of writing poems.  Grrr...  Another time, after what I still consider to be among my 2-3 very best poems, he said this:  "Sometimes you just know when you get it right."  I took that as high praise.

And I learned from his stingy compliments that my heart-song was my own to sing, whether anyone else liked it or not.  So I just kept going.  Kept writing.  Started going to Open Mics and Talent Nights and organizing readings with my women's poetry group.  People responded to my poems with laughter, tears, and applause.  It's a fabulous feeling to get that approval.  But that pales in comparison to the few who came up afterward to tell me they were touched, could relate, I spoke their own experience.  Writing, for me, is about connection.  The highest praise I can hear is that someone felt their own experience reflected and validated in my words.

And maybe that's ultimately what Jack taught us.  That each person's particular experience has universal appeal when we speak it out loud, sometimes on stage, under the lights...allowing our own vulnerability to give permission to another to touch theirs.

Jack died today.  He's one of those people who touched many lives.  I'm sure his memorial service will be packed with all sorts of people who will be a reflection of his amazing life.  I will sit towards the back, slouching a bit, remembering a man whose poems will never die.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Jack McCarthy  May 23, 1939 - January 17, 2013

2 + 2 = FREE VERSE

It's National Poetry Month.

I thought about this last evening as I sat in a dinner presentation about investments with our financial advising group.  I should probably have been thinking about "return on investment", "percentage growth", "caps", "REITs", "leveraging ratios", "weighted average capitalization rates"....whatever.  I married a man who speaks "math".  I don't.

The Illinois Public School System lost me at long division in 4th grade and never bothered to make me learn much beyond that.  I believe, these days, I'd be diagnosed with a significant learning disability in math skills, but back then putting me in "general math" classes for the rest of my school life basically allowed me to meet the requirements for graduation with no fuss or muss on my part -- or the school's.

Anyway, I trust my husband and our advisors to keep us solvent into a ripe (riper?) old age (which really goes against my feminist grain, but I'm lazy about this and basically trusting....bad combo, I know).  And this disregard for taking responsibility for my financial well-being frees up significant day-dreaming time at these head-spinningly-confusing-money-talk meetings.

As luck would have it, our table-mates at last night's gig included a woman about my age (they are ALL "about my age" at these things..) who is also a poet!!! This has certainly never happened to me before, and I would guess was a rare occurrence for her as well.  We were sitting too far apart to whisper to each other throughout the presentation (ahhh....just like Sue and me in 7th grade!), but we were able to exchange a few words about our respective writing groups, fun writing exercises, what other poets we like, etc., etc.  It was a brief, but delightful, exchange -- all the more so for being so totally unexpected.

So, next time "Hub" insists we go to one of these events, I will be much more open to it.  The sneaky muse of the poet is always lurking...even when math is involved.

At least, that's the view from here....©
*************
My new poet friend from last night told me about this terrific TED Talk with one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins, in which he featured 5 of his poems accompanied by animated shorts.  It is a delight!

http://www.ted.com/talks/billy_collins_everyday_moments_caught_in_time.html