It's a Balancing Act

In the early morning dark, awakening to a call of nature, I slipped out of bed, balanced on my good leg, spun 180 degrees, and sat down on the floor. Groping for the bedside lamp, I discovered that, instead of my trusty sidekick wheelchair, I had parked my energy-sapping walker by the bed. I had to laugh. (Once I checked that my steel-sealed tibia hadn't suffered a setback.)

I had to laugh because I'm an optimist . . .

Because I daydream of once again dashing about Four Mile--hauling hay bales into the east stall so our rescue horse Saul can bunk with Travis and Skipper in the west wing of our 86-year-old barn.

I plot how we will put up more fencing to create a dry pen for the horses to keep Travis, our "easy-keeper" roly-poly Tennessee Walking horse, from equine obesity.

I fantasize mornings in the round pen directing 1200-pound pets at a walk, a trot, a canter, quick halts, inside turns, and long, trusting backings.

And I look forward to once again being in the saddle, looking out over our seven acres with gratitude and awe and the knowledge that I am incredibly fortunate to have landed here. (Maybe not the best word choice.)

But first, I need to master wheelchairs and walkers and getting to and from the bathroom and managing my expectations. I have to laugh. Seriously.

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When Women Were Birds

Many thanks to Marsh and Carol Galloway for the rehab reading: When Women were Birds, by Terry Tempest Williams. Anne Lamott found it "Brilliant, meditative, and full of surprises, wisdom, and wonder." I concur. It recalled me to Tillie Olsen's Silences, another marvelous meditation, but on the absence of women's voices.

Among so many notable reflections in William's book, these are some I suspect have found permanent purchase in my own head-heart:

"Beside a well, one won't thirst; beside a sister, one won't despair."

"There are two important days in a woman's life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why."

"Not the lotus without the mud."

And as a writer . . . "Empty pages become possibilities."

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Just One of Those Things

I wanted to write something funny today
but my daughter threw up
tomato soup on celery-green shag
the tile-and-floor man finally came
before I could dress
and poke holes in my hair for my eyes
and nobody kissed me
the whole damn day

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Stumblebumming

LetterPoem to Linda Gracen

my last morning in Mendocino 

I see red rose petals scattered through 

a Cyprus grove on the headlands

velvety bright surprise, like finding you again

at Ten Mile, perched above white water

a vista as spectacular as your smile 

and the amazing capacity of your heart 

that cradles the walking wounded 

their stumblebum migration to mental health

not unlike my own return each year 

to my abandoned heart, all those 

still beating along the coast that speak to me 

of braver choices than my own

even the glazed-eyed highway walker 

pad-padding to and fro in her flip-flops

relentless in her unfathomable quest

and dusty Spencer in decade-old dreadlocks 

forever hitching rides between Mendocino 

and Fort Bragg, and I wonder what if I’d stayed

what if I returned, what if I rediscovered

the rhythm of a heart not lost but merely 

misplaced like our friendship along the 

many miles I’ve traveled away and back again 

always yearning for what gets left behind 

on this meandering trail going no place much

after all

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Expecting the Milky Way

He's almost afraid to meet her again,

he laughs into the phone,

especially in the nowhere-to-hide 

flatlands of their youth.

He wonders will she see beyond

the graying hair, face creased with 

the harsh march toward middle-age,

to the lean, light-hearted lover

curved over car engines and red beers

and her own velvet awakenings,

yet their voices meld into the old cadence,

surging like sparks along the wires 

that reconnect them as they reminisce 

about cars and mutual friends,

and what she's remembering is

the sweet searching of his tongue 

circling  just inside her lips,

his hand a subtle curve under her breast,

and she too wonders 

if they can meet again

to talk of roads taken and not,

of children and jobs and obituaries,

and not the dreams that bloomed like moon flowers

under star-encrusted skies of the heartland

when hopes were so bright they could blind

and young hearts kept expecting the Milky Way

to shower down stars like an anointment, 

blessing them with the impossible—

a future without sorrows,

life without regret.

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Fortunes (from Catching up the Baby Books)

My daughters read horoscopes
like scripture,
the eldest peering over
the tops of newspapers
to look eagerly about
for a tall, dark stranger with whom
to have my grandchildren.

The second, the pragmatist,
lifts rug corners and chair cushions
seeking gold and jewels
misplaced by visitors
who pretend to be less than rich.

I would chide them openly, deny
this charting of each day's journey
via patent frivolity
if I could be sure
what to offer in return.

Perhaps I could say,
"Avoid today anyone who
makes you want to lie,"
but in their fierce need for approval
children learn early
to shuffle what is true
with what they wish to be so.

Or I could say,
"Do not make love every time
your teeth itch--
try going to the bathroom first
and thinking of embarrassing diseases
or stretch marks."
But when teenage hormonal
sirens begin to wail,
it is the parents
who fold themselves
beneath the desk
awaiting the silence
of a narrow escape
or the concentric blows
of a chromosome explosion.

Maybe I could say,
"End each day with a hopeful song
full of dreamwords like heartbeats
and fond embraces,"
but some nights fathers rage
or disappear, grandmothers
pass away, and someone decides
to love someone else forever, again.
Who can read music against
the ink black of a starless sky?

If there is to be hope for them
perhaps it is this--
perhaps I could say,
"Be sure to make
the kinds of mistakes
that will prepare you well
for second marriages."

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LetterPoem to a Man With His Hands at his Sides

Eons ago, when I was still teaching writing at Wichita State University, I used to give readings (no, not tarot--poetry and short stories) and writing workshops around Kansas. These were mostly at other schools and women's events, but once I travelled to a large brick building in western Kansas where my audience was seriously challenged. Seriously. As in some couldn't lift their chins off their chests or hold a pencil or propel their own wheelchairs. What to do, what to do. What I tried not to do was focus on the exceedingly limber man in the middle of the room who was chewing on his bare foot.

I settled on having them try to write acrostic poems--using each letter of their names. Those who could tried. Those who could read them aloud did. It was surreal, and I was desperate to fill my time slot on their activities calendar so I could get to my car and head back east.

A motorcycle accident--he was in his 30s--grasped that I was from Wichita and wanted me to know he was also. It seemed to please him. Then he stood to read his poem.

J ohn
O nly
H urts
N ow

In that sterile room of wounded bodies and brains, there was an audible, collective sigh. They got it. They were more present than I was at the time.

At the end of my dog-and-pony show, those residents who were able to line up were directed to pass by me with their thanks and goodbyes. The toe chewer dutifully shook my hand, smiled, and said, "Ya done good. Kep 'em busy. That's what they need."

Among my more conventional audiences, my poem below was the one for which I received the most requests for copies. Today's readers can make of that what they will.

In fact, I don't know who might be reading this, what your own stories are, what you're doing with your feet, where your man's hands are.  I'm always listening for a collective sigh.

LetterPoem to a Man with His Hands at His Sides

This early morning room glares like a naked bulb,
and when I close my eyes against the light, you
are almost here, like the lost words of your pauses
that always seem to tell another story, like the
wallpaper I've intended to hang for so long that
I am sometimes startled to see the stark sheetrock
and scarred ceilings where I had meant for smooth
patterns to appear. Even this new floor has been
gouged, the spot growing darker,  like a bruise
that will not heal, and I regret that I deal
so awkwardly with reversals and loose ends,
the unknowns left dangling, like your arms by
your sides the night I thought you were going
to gather my ill-defined fears against your chest
until I could lose them in the pattern of your shirt.
And while I know now that it matters only that you didn't--
the why of it lost in that last, long pause--I still go on
struggling against the absence of blueprints or anniversaries,
and write this letter, like my children scribbling their
messages across the blank walls, to color them with meaning.

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