Alice
The lady at number 6
lived with great joy,
through the darkest of days
and dares to hope we will all hear the music.
It is playing on the wind for those willing to hear.
A humming,
there is beauty at all times.
Even when there is not a glimmer of hope,
there is beauty.
You must only listen for it.
Love letters. Write them. Send them to your best most sweetest friend, your Mom, your dog, your lover, yourself. Sit for a bit and write some sappy, heartfelt, honest shit about love and then HIT SEND. Do it. You will feel wonderful. The person who gets the letter will feel cherished. And that is some good, good stuff to put out into the world.
Below is a prompt from Modern Hepburn.
Tell me how you get along with this assignment. Love, Badass Snowflake. xoxo
You know how much I love lists. They help me stay organized. They help me feel productive. I love checking things off my list as much as I love making the list. Yah, they drive me crazy too and I can get a bit carried away with the planning. But, let’s not dwell on the negative. The New Year is upon us and this is the absolute BEST time for making lists!!!
These are the things on my TO DO List this week:
Begin Again
I am
breathing
in
the sunshine.
Like a good friend
who sits very near,
to hold your hand,
The sun says,
“Ok, Let’s begin, again.”
Peace & Joy,
Lisa
The Mystery
Fill your pockets with rocks,
Take the ocean home
a
drop
at
a
time,
Reel in the moon
And the stars
Of a million-million years.
You are alone.
Shovel sand into a hole
That won’t fill, forever
And haul all of the twigs
From all of the forests,
From all of the places
You Must See.
You are still alone.
It will remain unfound, unsolved,
No answer. Though much effort expended in looking.
Alone.
You may find
After all of this busyness, bewilderment,
Exhaustion,
Along side you,
Me.
After the quiet retreat of winter in Northern Michigan, folks tend to get a bit edgy come March. The subtle changes in weather call out for movement. There is extra energy, more light. Some call it spring fever or March madness, for me, it is a transition, a waking up. I feel ready to be moving on to the next season but, winter is not quite done with me and that is frustrating. So, I bought myself a bunch of roses. Because, I am missing warmer weather. Because, I am missing being outside and feeling the warmth of the sun. As I stood looking at the flowers in the grocery store, I said to the women standing next to me, “I am going to make it spring inside.”
I have no control over the weather. I have nothing left inside that allows me to appreciate snow. The quiet. The long evenings and dark mornings. The stark white fields and monochromatic skies. Stew, slippers, fire, snowshoes have lost their appeal, until next December. It is no good wishing for another season. Spring has yet to arrive. The trick is to be present but, also honor the readiness for change. In this, I can make it through the end of winter. And while I wait, I do the best I can to be ok with where I am. I make it spring inside. I sit in the window where the sun pours in, though it is still 20* outside and soak it in. In the afternoon when the temperatures get in the high 30’s I make sure to get outside and listen to the birdsong and feel the hope that it will be spring soon.
Until then, heat up with a winter poem by my new favorite poet, Tyler Knott Gregson.
It’s the bits in the middle that get to the heart of it, the meat of the thing. Of course, birth and death are not to be discounted. They are dramatic events. Necessary events. But, life is in the middle, in between the bookends. The everyday. And boy, is it short, this life.
Start the Ride
And then, the topic of death kept circling, this week. It popped up in conversation with a client of mine who wants to promote her book on physician assisted suicide and end of life decisions. It came to me in a blog post about grief and loss. The radio show about death and dying, an actor reading chapters from David Eagleman’s Sum. My husband and his life-long obsession with his funeral playlist. What is that about? I took notice. It was too much coincidence, all this talk about dying. What’s all this noise about? To bring me back to present, to say, “no thanks, that’s not for us”? And the songs to play at his funeral? Well, maybe that is more like his soundtrack for our lives.
And then, I remember standing outside the hospital with our newborn son, who is in his last few months of high school, now. We are taking him home. And I am not sure it is a good idea. The car seat is fiddly. The baby starts to fuss. He is so tiny and perfect. We start to bicker. Grandma says, “How do I know? It’s been 20 years. They didn’t have car seats when you were a baby.” I look back to the door of the hospital, sure that a nurse will appear to take our child back to safety. Nope, you’re definitely not ready. Somehow we got him into the car seat but, he was howling. Mom, Dad and Grandma settled in the car with screaming baby and not a clue. And then, we remember that music is supposed to soothe a crying a baby. We had read it in What to Expect When Expecting or recalled it from lamaze class. It doesn’t matter how it came to us. It came to us. The cassette, yes cassette, goes on. The baby quiets down. Queue track # 10 in the funeral playlist, Devo Going Under. And we begin for him and continue for us, the bit in the middle. Life. And really, it’s all on the fly.
Skip forward, the baby is turning 18. We have done so many things together. He is going out there to do more. And it was so fast, from that day with the car seat to this day. His little brother is right behind him. I hold excitement, fear, joy, love and anticipation all at once for what life will bring for these boys. And I hold Mary Oliver’s words in mind for us all, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Badass Snowflake 