“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” – Mark TwainNo Clapping Zone
Dupuytren’s Contracture in my left hand
joins with an arthritic thumb to create
its own clumsy five-digit island.
On my right hand, a long-ago
partially healed broken middle finger
refuses to bend. And avoids vulgar messages.
None of the ten appendages chooses
to juggle anything more challenging
than a dose of Tylenol.
On one point both hands agree.
No clapping possible.
We look like drunk spiders.
And yet, both left and right concur
in more important matters.
In everyday places.
Let’s cook a meal. Ignore the spills.
Or type this poem, or send a message
to someone who needs support.
Let the larger audience carry
the greater approval for performances.
These hands will offer gifts. Just give them time.
Memory, the song from Cats. I have been singing it at the senior center with a kind piano player who encourages me. I haven’t used my soprano range except to occasionally add a descant during one of our small church services.
Now, memory gives me the notion to randomly go through some of my blogs from the past. The granddaughter I mention in the story below is now preparing for college. With scholarships. She has grown well. I am proud of you, Kate.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love, a resting place for innocence on earth, a link between angels and men. (Martin Fraquhar Tupper)
I found a spiral-bound journal with a K on the front of it for eighty cents–perfect for six-year-old Kate. I tell her that I couldn’t find one with an R on it for her little sister, Rebecca, but I did get an extra outfit for her for emergencies. Kate sees no problem with cost disparity. Not at six. She is happy about her book and unwraps it immediately.
“I’ll use it for my letters to God.”
“Oh.”
I don’t mention that she asked me how to spell bird this morning. Her spelling vocabulary isn’t that comprehensive yet. Somehow, it doesn’t matter. Our granddaughter’s large heart is easy to read. Phonetically, drawn with stick figures, printed backward. I suspect her God can comprehend whatever she creates without a problem.
She decorates the front and back cover with blue flowers, drawn with my good calligraphy pen. I let her use it. After all, this is an important communication.
I can’t say I considered writing God a letter when I was in first grade. Heck, I don’t remember ever setting up a book for anything beyond a day’s coloring.
We arrive at school a tad early; there’s been a snow delay. She knows the rule, to sit quietly along the wall. She asks me to wait with her, the biggest kid in the class. I try to wear their innocence, squatted on the floor, but it has been too long.
“Mommy usually sits over there.” She whispers, pointing to three chairs across the way.
I nod, and the principal says nothing about her breaking the stillness. Sometimes adults need directions from their young ones.
“You can go to your classrooms now,” the principal says.
I linger long enough for my final goodbye hug, then leave for my day’s agenda. I wonder with a sense of awe what beauties will fill an eighty-cent notebook and suspect that nothing I accomplish today could come close to its mysteries.
Let’s stop believing that our differences make us superior or inferior to one another. (Don Miguel Ruiz)
Juneteenth. I was in my seventies when I heard about the event. And the real-person images of human beings sold like cattle, fill my mind.
Have you seen my husband, brother, and child? an old letter reads. The question remains from the day when slavery ended. Legally. An end to the practice came later in name only. Loss remains. Law could not outlaw bigotry and hate.
I think about how blessed I am to live in a multi-cultured neighborhood where I see color. The way I see the beauty inside a rose garden or a watercolor pallet.
Centuries-old black and white pictures appeared before the day approached. Without moving text. History. In words. Inside the eyes of a captured individual is a fear that must stay hidden. A numbness that was mistaken for ignorance. Stay inside the master’s rules, young man. Consequences can be fatal.
Now. Freedom has come. Listen. Juneteenth. I hope for a time when equality will move with the in-and-out breath of all living creatures. Taken for granted.
If you feel pain, you are alive. If you feel other people’s pain, you are a human being. (Leo Tolstoy)
Emotions. Tricky. And universal. I had an experience lately where I was attacked on public media for disappointing the cause. Anger exploded. I pretended to process the experience prematurely. Something like jumping from an airplane without training. My reply was sweet but vastly inadequate. After all, the cause was against violence.
Fortunately, an understanding friend intervened. Privately. Why begin a war over a misunderstanding?
No. I am not relaying details. No point to it. I prefer to focus on what I decided. The beauty of listening, recognizing the heart of the other. In my own life. It is not possible during a shouting match. Sometimes genuine evil is formidable enough.
I think about how difficult it is to live personal life inside the polar political realm. To look deeper at who gains and who loses. To look from the inside of those most likely to be hurt.
“There’s a police car in the parking lot. With its lights on,” someone in our spiritual group calls.
No sirens. Nevertheless, I’m jolted from the sweetness of our gathering.
I see a young man with dark skin and long hair. He hides beside a parked car. He runs next to the beige walls of a church and squats down, then runs again. I don’t know what happened, or why he hides.
With no chaos, no noise, and no gunfire, the police drive away. With the young man inside the car. I hear nothing of a forced encounter. I don’t see the capture at all. The beginning or end of a story. I see part of a scene from a silent play in progress. No ticket to follow its progress.
Later, the moment replays in my mind. And heart. May peace and justice meet without bias. May no violence be a sign of a reasonable outcome.
I recall simpler situations. The lady in front of me in the checkout line at the grocery. She’s uptight over the way a young man bags. I have her pegged. Yet, this could be just a sideways reaction on a difficult day. Even if my assessment is accurate, does it need to alter who I am?
Be the peace you wish to be. Okay, Dr. King. If you can do it, anyone can.
The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. (William Shakespeare )
I wrote this song while Ella was in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital. Twelve years ago. At birth, she weighed three pounds and three ounces. The song created positive energy while I waited for Ella to grow and heal.
Eric Hauck, my incredible guitar teacher, provided professional backup and recorded the music on a CD. For a student in her mid 60’s. Hey, so I’m a late bloomer. Just a later-than-usual variety.
Recently, a beautiful young friend from the YMCA created a private YouTube video for me from that compact disc.
Ella loves to listen to her song. Now. As a real-life, almost-teenager. Someone I never could have envisioned from a tiny creature held together with oxygen and tubes.
Since I fractured a metacarpal in my right hand, guitar strings and I don’t get along as well anymore. However, music lives. I hope these two minutes lift your spirits.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. (Mahatma Gandhi).
As the age of 76 appears in my too-near future, I study acrylic painting. Its layers. Its idiosyncrasies. I tend to find optical illusions without trying. See how this twig seems to come directly from the child’s arm, my teacher says.
Nope, I hadn’t seen that at all.
I take flat stripes of one color and blend them into another with or without water depending upon the stage of development.
White paint makes colors opaque.
Green should contain more than one syllable.College art courses teach about this elusive color. For an entire semester. And more.
A drop or two of black added to cobalt blue brings down its power.
I watch the May leaves on the trees with fresh enthusiasm. The power of reflective light working with shadow.
The power of light and shadow in life. Both real. A memory of intense fear strikes me. Unexpectedly. I don’t deny it, but don’t embrace it either. I add another memory.
My grandson and I are gathering rocks in a wagon. “You won’t live forever,” he says.
“That’s right. So, let’s enjoy the sun today and get some more rocks.”
“Okay. Want to go up the street and look?”
I smile. Why not?
We come back to paint our collection. My grandson blends every color in a messy experiment. Gray. I watch as he explores. Perfection is not the goal. Celebration is.
Sometimes the questions are complicated, and the answers are simple. (Dr. Seuss)
The Bridge Called Life
A bridge not always named
because some know they cross it,
and others believe they own it.
The bridge called life.
One thing I suspect to be true.
The blind understands better than
the sighted. Hold my hand. And don’t let go.
We’ll learn along the way.
photo taken from a public domain pic used in a previous blog
Love, the moment and the energy of that moment, will spread beyond all boundaries. (Corita Kent)
Both the smile and the purple bruises on the side of my face, are real. I fell. Tripped over an air vent and landed on something hard enough to raise a bump the size of an extra appendage. Okay, I’m exaggerating. The bump is no larger than the average oversized walnut. The pain, however, made me think a tank had parked in my kitchen, and I’d been thrown into it.
My husband took me to the emergency room.
I was fortunate. Hematoma with no brain-bleed. I came home to heal. On St. Patrick’s Day—wearing the wrong color. Healing will take time. There are no prescriptions for patience. If there were I would ask for double-strength dosage.
In the meantime, I treasure holding my two-year-old granddaughter during a rare moment when she isn’t experimenting with perpetual motion.
“Precious child Addie, thanks for overlooking bruises and seeing me behind them. We will conquer the imaginative world again after you are rested.”
terrypetersen 