(inspired by bob)
mornings are slow.
no longer the feast of competent productivity,
the rushing here and there from appointments, to jobs to tasks.
a class and conversations in between. attempting to manage many lists.
the morning starts with tea and my husband reading the Psalms.
it takes longer to get going.
held back by the natural order of things,
there has been loss--
priorities change whether i want them to or not.
misplaced identities stripped away.
a humbling time, this slowing down.
a time to carry very small things,
to live in between.
and to receive.
to take quiet walks hand in hand,
slivers of yellow leaves flying
on the warm autumn air.
praying with hands outstretched:
only You can supply what i need.
only You could have guided toward this very small
joy.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
a few thoughts.
"I ask you right here to please agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived." Chris Cleave, Little Bee
Lauren, it must be said, is one of my favorite writers: "Everything seems deliberate when it could seem so aimless. The delicate fury in our desire to emerge from the most ordinary sorrows."
I need to thank her for sharing this song. Yes please. That lovely trail led me nicely to this one. I didn't know I could like a version as much as Neil Young's, but the strummy guitar, the harmonies of favorite voices, the beer bottles clattering on the floor in the background noise. It is just so on this fall night when outside it smells like woodfires burning, and inside the warm lights glow.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Coming soon: Saturday, October 16!
These branches are part of my contribution to Artists for Pakistan, a community wide fundraiser being organized by my friend Dassler. To find out more details about the event, go here. I also have a couple of mobiles that I will be contributing as well, but have not yet found a good way to photograph them.
I appreciated the invitation to be a part of this, and the opportunity it fostered for slowing down, taking time to create and taking the time to pray for those who have been and will be affected by the flooding in Pakistan.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
equinox
We passed the day of equinox and somehow I missed marking it. Now the night is longer than the day, and our mornings hold a warm, quiet, late sunrise. Evenings, though I try to hold them, slip quickly away. We walk around the fountains in early dusk, we ready to hibernate.
I remember what I can and cannot keep.
***
I was talking to a friend about longing and hunger and grace. That something in us that attempts to take what we think we need, arrange our lives to dull the quiet ache of a heaviness that it was proved we could not carry, could never carry or fix.
Try to hold life and life. Try to make sense, and grieve what ends and give thanks always. Learn to receive what is new.
***
Even now, I think of the place far away, the place that I could not hold. The smell of incense as I walked home through the alleys in Tollygunge. Home from buying a coke at the corner store.
I walked by and saw the semi-circle of women sitting in the warm night air in their beautiful saris, singing. In the temple there, they sat most nights singing bhaktis with the accompaniment of a drum and the small finger cymbals. I looked in briefly and nodded to them, my neighbors. I watched a cat steal away into the maidan. I heard the running water of pans being washed in the narrow space outside Maya’s house, the single lightbulb shining, the voice of Momta talking to her little brother. The television flashed a bright Bollywood movie and mingled its songs with the singing of the women.
A Thursday night, community worship night. These times were some of my favorite. The singing together, sharing the word, a meal for hearts heavy and hungry. Bread of life. Dusk fell early there too, but the cold did not come. We sat on the rooftop smoking and talking. Memory and longing and hunger, joy and sorrow. A different equinox, a long time ago in another life.
I remember what I can and cannot keep.
I remember what I can and cannot keep.
***
I was talking to a friend about longing and hunger and grace. That something in us that attempts to take what we think we need, arrange our lives to dull the quiet ache of a heaviness that it was proved we could not carry, could never carry or fix.
Try to hold life and life. Try to make sense, and grieve what ends and give thanks always. Learn to receive what is new.
***
Even now, I think of the place far away, the place that I could not hold. The smell of incense as I walked home through the alleys in Tollygunge. Home from buying a coke at the corner store.
I walked by and saw the semi-circle of women sitting in the warm night air in their beautiful saris, singing. In the temple there, they sat most nights singing bhaktis with the accompaniment of a drum and the small finger cymbals. I looked in briefly and nodded to them, my neighbors. I watched a cat steal away into the maidan. I heard the running water of pans being washed in the narrow space outside Maya’s house, the single lightbulb shining, the voice of Momta talking to her little brother. The television flashed a bright Bollywood movie and mingled its songs with the singing of the women.
A Thursday night, community worship night. These times were some of my favorite. The singing together, sharing the word, a meal for hearts heavy and hungry. Bread of life. Dusk fell early there too, but the cold did not come. We sat on the rooftop smoking and talking. Memory and longing and hunger, joy and sorrow. A different equinox, a long time ago in another life.
I remember what I can and cannot keep.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
glow.
Day full of blue sky. So full it had to end early. Not yet cold. We are on the cusp of big things today, tonight, forever. We but just now, we are are on our way to the lights.
Night falls. We take a pilgrimage from my house over to the softball fields in the park. A group walking with a yellow farm wagon; four kids madly waving glow sticks. Acorns litter the sidewalk and we crunch them underfoot. The night is warm on the edge of cool. The road traffic is a ruckus, cars playing a sort of pinball to secure parking spots and outsmart others stuck in the jam. It is gridlock; policemen are impatient with their directions and brusque conversations with people leaning out of their cars to find the source of the slow-down. On the road, no one wins.
Only those walking make it through to the lights and whistles. Somewhere along the way, Ollie gets exited as only a three and a half year old can, waving a glow stick and exclaiming with great triumph: I am SUPER MARIO!
We make it up to the place where the balloons are tethered to the ground and wade through the crowd. Those sitting and standing and milling, those trying to escape wagons and strollers. Past the junk stands selling plastic blow up hot air balloons and beads, paper parasols and all other manner of unrelated junk. We make it through to the inside, in the corridor where we are standing between the tall, soft, swaying silk balloons. Kick up the dust and look around, heads lifted to the glow and magical float of the balloons in the sky all around us.
Night falls. We take a pilgrimage from my house over to the softball fields in the park. A group walking with a yellow farm wagon; four kids madly waving glow sticks. Acorns litter the sidewalk and we crunch them underfoot. The night is warm on the edge of cool. The road traffic is a ruckus, cars playing a sort of pinball to secure parking spots and outsmart others stuck in the jam. It is gridlock; policemen are impatient with their directions and brusque conversations with people leaning out of their cars to find the source of the slow-down. On the road, no one wins.
Only those walking make it through to the lights and whistles. Somewhere along the way, Ollie gets exited as only a three and a half year old can, waving a glow stick and exclaiming with great triumph: I am SUPER MARIO!
We make it up to the place where the balloons are tethered to the ground and wade through the crowd. Those sitting and standing and milling, those trying to escape wagons and strollers. Past the junk stands selling plastic blow up hot air balloons and beads, paper parasols and all other manner of unrelated junk. We make it through to the inside, in the corridor where we are standing between the tall, soft, swaying silk balloons. Kick up the dust and look around, heads lifted to the glow and magical float of the balloons in the sky all around us.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
undone
"We will be inheriting soon
real reality, all
the peace of the universe:
unending night and the still hugely nameless
majority of the stars." franz wright
~~~
It has not been found.
A lull—that is us…holding. Face in hands—
holding
till we can’t see straight—
only spinning,
nothing but feedback.
Then everything stops except a
static noise whistling.
It all unravels.
~~~
In the beginning it was a surprise. It taught me how to write backwards. From the bottom to the top. I suppose because I could see the end of the story before the beginning. It has always made more sense to me to go from last to first--
Backwards story the pushing to used am I.
~~~
That night--music spinning,
I saw that this person was a whole new way
of seeing the earth and how
words could work and how
a life could be lived.
It was strange to see this now—this going backwards.
All I can say is something in me that understood time and love
and the proper way to tell a story
became undone.
real reality, all
the peace of the universe:
unending night and the still hugely nameless
majority of the stars." franz wright
~~~
It has not been found.
A lull—that is us…holding. Face in hands—
holding
till we can’t see straight—
only spinning,
nothing but feedback.
Then everything stops except a
static noise whistling.
It all unravels.
~~~
In the beginning it was a surprise. It taught me how to write backwards. From the bottom to the top. I suppose because I could see the end of the story before the beginning. It has always made more sense to me to go from last to first--
Backwards story the pushing to used am I.
~~~
That night--music spinning,
I saw that this person was a whole new way
of seeing the earth and how
words could work and how
a life could be lived.
It was strange to see this now—this going backwards.
All I can say is something in me that understood time and love
and the proper way to tell a story
became undone.
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