As the train turned
To cross the bridge
The city was drenched
In the last golden light
Of a late winter day.
I was watching gulls
Flying above the river
Turned into glimmering
Gems hanging in the
Approaching twilight.
7Mar/090
Alone
CK is down in Northern California with family, attending to her uncle who is very ill. I dropped her off at the airport a little past noon. I start to miss her by the time I drive away.
My mind does all the reminders about how important it is that she see her family. How I admire her for spending this kind of time with her family. How it is only a short trip. How I'll email, chat, text message, and talk on the phone with her.
Blah, blah, blah... I miss her.
I cannot even be distracted by talking to AM, hanging out watching TV together. He's out at Great Vow doing his Beginner's Mind retreat. He was very anxious when he left this afternoon. He's also needing to rethink again on what he's going to do come June 1. I so want him to be well, be happy, to know some measure of pride in what he's done.
I don't think I mindfully filled this weekend alone with as much as possible, but it has worked out that way. Tomorrow is the first of 4 very long days at Prananda. I'll assist in the 9:30AM gentle class, then a break for a bite to eat, then a full afternoon of teacher training, teaching a class at 4:30... Whew! Sunday I'll teach, spend several hours with Mom, then go to the M. Ward show at the Aladdin. CK and I were supposed to go together, but when the need to be with her family came up we decided I'd still go with my friend EB.
Monday CK will be back, I'll run out to the airport to pick her up around 2:30. Until then I'll have the silence to appreciate the way she just clicked into my life. Having the quiet to look at this I can see the empty spot I just kept trying to bridge, work around, do anything but really honestly look at what was needed to complete it.
Which brings me to a poem for Day 6 (technically this is 7, but I haven't been to bed yet so it counts).
Missing Piece
It is in the time
That fills with
Silence when
You are gone
That I can see
How you fit into
A space in my
Life I didn't want
To admit needed
Completion.
5Mar/090
30 Poems – Day 5
Thursdays make for a long day for me. Work and zazen; usually I get home around 10PM. Today I met CK and DT for dinner at Laughing Planet on SE Belmont in between the two things, making for no real break at all. I'd realized that they would be the hard days to come up with a new poem! Mindful of that, the walk home from the bus stop inspired a new haiku:
Spring's Impatience
“Snow’s cold novelty
Has entirely worn off.”
Say Spring’s first blossoms.
5Mar/090
A Letter of Gratitude
I did something I've always considered terribly silly and somewhat uncomfortable today.
I wrote AND mailed a fan letter to one of my favorite authors, Ursula K. Le Guin. I was introduced to her writing in high school in 1985 and have been a reader ever since. Novels, poetry, short stories, even commentary and translation -- her words just resonate with me. They made me think about the world in a different way as a teen and continue to inspire me. Even when I reread things I continue to learn from them and about myself through them.
I've never actually written anyone a fan letter before. I always felt kind of silly. Even meeting a handful of authors I really like* and once or twice a musician I felt painfully awkward. Not that I don't see these people as human or that I'm entirely at ease meeting people. I feel generally awkward meeting people in general, when I talk with someone who's art has deeply affected me the everyday uncomfortable feeling gets turned up to 11, as it were. To try and put it into words... well, I feel like some babbling fool.
It also feels as though I'm being a bother, an imposition. I run into this one a lot, actually. The feeling as though I'm worthy of the attention of someone I admire in any way.
Why write a letter? Well, there's a certain element of 'why not?' in the answer. A few other things too... I've never had the opportunity to meet Ms. Le Guin or even hear her speak. She's rather reclusive and even though I've been a fan for mover half my life & live in the same city, it just never has happened. As I approach 40 years it occurs to me that, since neither she nor I have halted the aging process, I should actually let go of feeling foolish and just offer my gratitude.
What I said to her in the letter that I had come to understand that in holding back from writing the letter, in listening to the voice of my Inner Critic, that I was denying both of us the pleasure of my gratitude. It isn't as if Ms. Le Guin will find it overly tiresome to receive one more letter thanking her for her writing. Even though it feels a little awkward still I am glad I took the time to share my gratitude.
*Of the authors I have met in person I must say that Neil Gaiman has always been the most cordial of them all and an absolute delight to chat with even if only for a moment. I've been very grateful to be present for hearing him read from his work -- wonderful, marvelous experience!
4Mar/090
The Distraction of Approval
I'd like to write about the charming fox sailing away in a golden walnut boat that arrived in the mail for me today, bringing me absolute delight. I kept trying to write about this and move into the comforting pleasure about writing about silly, happy, lovely things.
Instead I've been counting the days in my head since AM and I filed for divorce. I think today is 30 days since filing. We each received a slightly baffling piece of mail saying how a General Judgement was entered last week. I did some research and looking through the certified copies of everything. That's one of the pieces of paperwork that was in the filing. Once it is entered by a judge and 30 days had passed the divorce would be final. So I think it may well be today. Feels a little strange.
I think if we'd not done it now, to have just let things between us continue to drift, I think eventually it would have eroded our friendship hugely, perhaps irrevocably. Not rejection so much as a mutal willingness to look unflinchingly at what we've both avoided for years. My therapist pointed out to me last week that since I've been seeing her (going on 6 years) there has been this undercurrent of distance and a sense of my compromising on my authentic self for the sake of loving a friend so much. And now we both get to step off in very different directions, very different people.
Here I am, dropping another privilege of normalcy - this time all the things that going along with the shield, anonymity of "hetero-normal". I tried to hard to fit in as a kid, really throughout most of my 20s too. Moving who I was towards positive reinforcement, they ways in which I could be sure I'd be liked.
I feel exposed and notice reminders daily of how I don't fit in with society. How in some cases many people, if not several other countries, believe what I'm doing is abnormal and wrong, sinful and shameful. At the very best finding me extreme in my choices. It is kind of terrifying, much of the time really. Despite all of that, in the past 6 years I've come to know with certainty that to move closer to the Truth, to rest in the Essential Self, is to turn away from all the things I once distracted and comforted myself with.
The Distraction of Approval
Given sufficient uncertainty
The familiarity of bending,
Towards the false idol of praise
Felt as normal as breath,
More so.At some point the stories
Lacked humor, especially to me.
The smile, merely pasted in place.
The laughter always sounded
Canned, a track stuck in a loop.
3Mar/092
The Gift of Unexpected Back Bends
I went to teach yoga feeling the same fatigue I've been fighting with for a week or two now. My throat never gets beyond a little "scratchy" feeling and I'm sneezing a bit (but the trees are starting to get leaves), but never really where I feel sick. Mostly just so tired out and my shoulders felt a little sore from the class I took at Exhale last night.
Three students showed up tonight and one of them, a returning student who has a more advanced practice, asked if we could play around with "wheel" pose. Really this pose is called "Upward Bow" and I had noted a couple of weeks ago I couldn't teach it because my shoulders were so badly strained. Tonight when she asked I realized I didn't have to demonstrate how to do the pose perfectly so much as I needed to be very precise in verbally teaching it. That and very mindful of my students.
I put together a class to work towards ending with upward bow pose ; opening the front of the legs, warming up the abdominal muscles, and waking up the strength in the shoulders. Not too vigorous so they would have the energy to lift up at the end of class. I got everyone set up with bricks against the wall for extra length and as I finished helping the two very new students I looked over to see the returning student, L, UP in the pose all on her own!
I believe we were both equally excited about her getting up into the pose when she didn't think she would be able to!
I then partnered with one of the newer students and we were able to cradle L through a drop backwards into upward bow! The two new students, having both seen and helped someone into the pose, felt brave enough to try it after that! Each of the three students did the supported back bend! There were many smiles, much laughter, occasional "oofs", and spontaneous applause.
It was just amazing working with them and receiving another lesson in the ways in which my inability to do a pose perfectly, or at all, matters so much as my mindful teaching. I found myself sitting bemused and filled with gratitude while they all lay in savasana at the end of class. How sometimes the manner in which I can be pushed outside of my own limits to realize another way is possible is a delightful experience.
Out of gratitude for the gift of the class tonight I wrote a poem for the 30-day Challenge about learning from my students.
Student-Teacher
I learn from them,
These people called "students".
That arrive each week
And call me "teacher".I have learned that we forget
Self-compassion as easily and as
Quickly as we forget the breath
When experiencing a challenge.I have felt how laughter helps
To release the deep, sharp
Intensity in a body overly
Familiar with tension.
And how a room filled
With that laughter feels
Warm and welcoming
Even on the coldest days.A measure of the daring I
Possessed as a child has
Been reintroduced to me
Through people delighted to
Try something simply because
I offered instruction,
Encouragement and support.
2Mar/090
About my Poetry (and my day too)
My day was filled with meetings with clients in which I tried to figure out what they're doing, what they need, and that I don't actually do "magic", I write code. Then I fixed bugs, caught up and generally went about my Monday.
Checked out a Hatha/Restorative class at Exhale, a new "green" yoga studio in the Alberta Arts District. Great class, enjoyed it a lot. Not as restorative as I was not-so-secretly hoping for, but not too strenuous considering I felt a bit tired and achy. Lovely space with a nice feel and a cork floor (which was kinda chilly to me). Would be a class/studio I'd considering taking more classes at definitely! Gave me little thoughts about having my own studio too!
After class, which got out at 8:30, I foraged around the kitchen and came up with a mostly leftovers dinner + steamed broccoli. Watched Q.I. while I ate dinner and chatted with CK a little. All the time in the back of my mind thinking, "Gotta write a poem for the challenge today..."
I used to write a lot of poetry. Angsty stuff when I was in high school and college. In my 20s I wrote a lot of steamy, sexy stuff of desire. In my 30s I pretty much stopped entirely except for the very occasional haiku that's popped up over the past 4 years.
Now putting thought into poetry, thinking about how some of my favorite poems used language and space, I find myself an even harsh judge than ever before. As though lines written without the fire of infatuation lack spark.
That the 30 poems in 30 days challenge is part of my Zen community... well, my inner critic gets very insistent that I try to write about being in the present moment, shining the light of Dharma... But that feels even more pretentious than anything else I try.
This evening I wrote about Portland. I guess in a way it is writing about the present moment.
Evening Commute
1Mar/091
and Now for Something…
...a little different. I have retitled the blog, clearly.
Why -- This is actually what my blog was titled when I started out on this whole writing practice idea. The title is taken from a snippet of lyric in a Peter Gabriel song entitled, More Than This. The rest of the lyric goes, "Like words together we can make some sense." It fits with how I see my writing practice, my words together making sense of my life.
Sharing about myself, wholly, is challenging. In most of the relationships in my life I've compartmentalized myself - sharing various parts of myself depending upon the audience. Protecting and keeping hidden a lot of myself. Writing is a practice that helps bring all the parts together into the same space. As I was starting to learn how to write about myself and the interactions in my life, I hit a period where I started to chop things into smaller parcels again. Subconsciously I decided I wouldn't fully share the real me that wrote about struggles and healing.
Although my teachers say this is a voice worth hearing, a way to turn bitter past into "potent medicine" to help heal others, it is hard to be open in these spaces most of all. Since one of my struggles is around being open with others, it makes for difficult practice to try and share my voice. Ultimately what I did make public where things that were less revealing of more tender places.
What this means aside from the title change? More posts will show up in the archives as I import things in and bring my pieces back together again. New posts will explore things like my inner critic, dramatic weight loss, and other more personal, deeper topics further.
1Mar/091
Each Word a Rock
I don't recall the title of the poem, but the words have stuck with me since high school. I'm fairly certain it was David Wagoner, a poet who settled north of me in Washington. Somewhere in boxes of old papers maybe the writing project I turned in at 15, or was it 16... My own poetry, some artwork of mine, and poems I felt a connection to.
Each word a rock
The size of a fist.I throw them one by one
At the dark window.
That was all, those thin, unadorned lines. I cannot find reference to this anywhere on the Internet and will dig around at the library this week to see if I can track it down to confirm. Maybe I'll be posting later this week I have the writer entirely incorrect or someone will correct me via a comment. What is important is how these words stuck with me through the past couple of decades.
The image of each word being a rock has especially stuck with me. My mind goes to how some of our words are tiny pebbles, a vast scattering of "and", "or", "the" and countless "ahs", "ums" and "ohs". Vast stone crags of Hope and basalt columns of Courage. Bits of jagged words like Shame and Fear, cutting like obsidian.
Today started a little writing challenge in my Sangha - to write and post a poem a day for the next 30 days. The goal is to just write, not to judge not to weigh and compare, just to share this practice together.
I started with an homage to this spare poem that has stayed in my mind all these years. Funny how writing poetry brings my inner critic front and center, loudly. Writing the occasional haiku has felt easy, but there always has been something about free verse that feels more revealing than anything else. I found myself looking at the first poem for the project finding it lacking in grace and style, excessive and pretentious. Feeling the anxiousness brought on by the harsh comments of my inner critic I posted a new poem to the site dedicated to collecting the works of this friendly challenge to go deeper into the practice of writing.
Stone Words
“Each word a rock…”
Another poet’s words
Read when I was young.My words,
Now grown older,
Are like the geology
Of this place.
Shaped by water
and by fire.
Explosive energy
And cold, silent rain.Words like the shoreline which
Reaches out to meet the
Constant change of ocean
With fingers of stone and
Pebbles strewn high and low.
A trove of glimmering
Words murmuring together.