The Hawks

Matt and I witnessed over 50 some hawks flying en mass above my house last evening. It was if all the the hawks in the city decided to rally right before us--circling in speechless waves. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it, and chances are it was a one time view. Matt said that it was as if they were having some spiritual gathering up there. To see it was like witnessing a hundred sunsets. Within 20 minutes they were gone, nary a sound carried from their black beaks. I couldn't help but think they were ushering in a new season--one mild and peaceful and heartfelt after the longer season of cold. I couldn't help but sense it as a sign of my present and future with Matt, that our coming together was written in the sky, and it is a sweet, sweet thing to marvel.

Because a lot of folks I know are struggling these days...

Here are a couple of poems by Mary Oliver that offer a kind of hope...

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Morning Poem

Every morning

the world

is created. 

Under the orange 

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again 

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands 

of summer lilies. 

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim away along the soft trails 

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere. 

And if your spirit

carries within it 

the thorn

that is heavier than lead ---

if it's all you can do

to keep on trudging --- 

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted --- 

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly, 

every morning, 

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy, 

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray. 

God Bless America - Frank's Speech

I came across this movie on Netflix last week: "God Bless America", a dark comedy that critiques America's fascination with pop culture and the cruelty of media and reality TV. This scene here is the spine of the film's message. With so much weight, so much attention given to the likes of the Kardashians and Paris Hilton's of the world--people who are famous for being famous--when everyone tries to be the most shocking in order to be known and the media just panders to that strive for fame, what do we lose? For one, we miss out on real honest to goodness talent. And more importantly, we lose our civility. The film isn't for the squeamish--there's a lot of blood and violence, but the message should hit home for everyone.

Some Long Days

Yeah, it's been a few weeks since I've posted anything here. In those few weeks I've been sick, working every spare moment I have every single day scoring SAT essays, caring for the kids, the dog, the fish, the house (which I'm trying to get ready to sell). I've tasted spring and then winter and spring and then winter again. I've gotten one step closer to getting a new house. Essentially I have not had the balance my mind needs in order to write. And who wants to read about all the things I have going on that are making me feel exhausted? This isn't a space for complaining--it's a space for questioning and discovering and striving, a place to make something beautiful known, to be thoughtful. And life isn't always easy and even flowing. There are times that become way off balance and your only goal is to keep on and wait for the hectic to subside. Sometimes you just have to keep your head down and pluck away, have to hold your breath and follow through. Because there is always a point at which it evens out again. Despite the feeling that I haven't been able to relax, to just breathe, every day I am grateful. It is that gratefulness that makes it easier to get through those long days. Whenever I'm stressed I just think this--it means I'm alive. Who can complain about that, really?

Pics and Poem on a Monday

What can I say--I saw my best girls and we had a famous time, captured here in some photos:

 Taking in the St Patty's festivities in Oak Park

 Bagpipers.

 Lots of walking

 After dancing downtown for 8 hours we waltzed home only to keep going with our fancy moves,

And since I'm always the first to fall asleep and sleep so hard that nothing wakes me, this is the kind of stuff they like to pull. 

In recognition of our famous times, here's a beauty of a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye:

Famous

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,   

which knew it would inherit the earth   

before anybody said so.   

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds   

watching him from the birdhouse.   

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.   

The idea you carry close to your bosom   

is famous to your bosom.   

The boot is famous to the earth,   

more famous than the dress shoe,   

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it   

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.   

I want to be famous to shuffling men   

who smile while crossing streets,   

sticky children in grocery lines,   

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,   

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,   

but because it never forgot what it could do. 

So Long Iowa!

I'm off to see my best girls this weekend in Chicago. I'll be hitting the road around noon, enjoying loud tunes and rolling hillsides and 5 hours of alone time in the car. Never mind the fact that the cruise control ceased working. I'm going to swing by Oak Park and pick up Kristina, and then we'll meet Jessica at our hotel downtown. We'll be discussing great things--everything in our hearts on display. And then we'll dance and get to bed late and get up too early to make our way to Kristina's house in Oak Park, where the St. Patty's parade and festivities will be taking place. These are the bones of my weekend. A getaway that is overdue and much welcomed.

 Look how young we were! This was the first of our girls weekends in Milwaukee--8 years ago.

 Another Milwaukee trip. We've been doing weekends like this at least twice a year for the last 8 years.

 The last time we were all together in Chicago--last spring.

Kristina was with us in spirit here in Madison last fall.

The Waiting Place

Dr. Seuss would have had his birthday this week. There's one passage from his book "Oh The Places You'll Go" that I find myself coming back to whenever I feel stuck. It goes like this: "and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place...for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No. Or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting." I fear I've been waiting too much of late--waiting for winter to end, waiting to find a house and to build a new life therein with Matt being among the big ones. Yet I keep reminding myself of this passage, keep telling myself that the right things will happen at the right time. And then I think of that line from the movie "Shawshank Redemption"--the one that goes "you can get busy living, or get busy dying." And too, I think about my buddy Tim and his trademark phrase "or not". To be stuck waiting is to be unconnected to each moment that shapes a day, is to miss out on potential, is to escape presence. Some things, especially those that are close to our hearts, are hard not to wait for. My friend Amy who spent the last several months as a nurse for our troops in Afghanistan just landed on US soil last night. How could her parents not have been held in wait for her return? I imagine their breath is more full now. But the thing is, she has returned. The robins have returned so I know that spring is not far off. This house I am in now will sell and some new place will become available. I'll plant seeds. Plants will grow. It's all happening. It's all eventual.

Pandora's Box

Last week I attended Ella's band concert and one of the songs they played was Pandora's Box. Pandora, according to Greek mythology, was the first woman on earth. Zeus created her, gave her a beautiful jar which just so happened to contain all the evils of the world, and sent her to earth with the knowledge that she would open it. It struck me then how similar the story line was to Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit. And then it struck me how these stories hold an important truth--how for centuries women have been seen as temptresses. Apparently if women didn't exist there'd be no sin, no wickedness. Isn't it true that the things people fear become objects for blame, by which one attempts to contain and have power over? Stories of temptresses are so thoughtlessly ingrained in our history that it's no wonder women are still discriminated against: we get paid less, we hold fewer positions of political and corporate power, and in certain areas of the world are stoned to death for bringing shame on families for tempting men to violate us. Women are feared, and because of that are made weak by given less power in a male dominated world. It has always been so. But think back to when these views of women were perpetuated--a time of ruggedness where one needed more brawn than brain to survive. Because of the physical strength required it was men who rose to dominant status. Somehow they skimmed over the fact that without women there would be no men. I'm not suggesting that women are better--we need each other. It's symbiotic. And I'm not suggesting that all men have or still do believe that women are inferior. But I think about my daughter and how important it is for her to have confidence and how I hope she doesn't ever have to feel objectified. And I think about my son and how I hope when he hears the old stories he'll keep to his compassionate heart and feel a sense of ridiculousness for the fact that equality hasn't always been given to every human being. Because it is, in a word, ridiculous.

A Poem On a Monday

A quote by Robert Bly:

''If a man, cautious, 

hides his limp, Somebody has to limp it! Things do it; the surroundings limp. House walls get scars, the car breaks down; matter, in drudgery, takes it up.''

Winter Poem - Robert Bly

The quivering wings of the winter ant

wait for lean winter to end.

  I love you in slow, dim-witted ways,

  hardly speaking, one or two words only.

What caused us to live hidden?

  A wound, the wind, a word, a parent.

  Sometimes we wait in a helpless way,

  awkwardly, not whole and not healed.

  When we hid the wound, we fell back

  from a human to a shelled life.

  Now we feel the ant's hard chest,

  the carapace, the silent tongue.

  The must be the way of the ant,

  the winter ant, the way of those

  who are wounded and want to live:

  to breathe, to sense another, and to wait.