Reflections at the art museum
(in memoriam of Yves, a friend)
i see into the white
and i wonder about the last thing you saw
felt
the painter is desolate
the landscape alive
and i see your baseball hat,
omnipresent, protecting you from your future.
or so we thought.
lilies seemingly float on the pond, growing and shrinking
with every day.
they are eternal
eternal
without you here.
3 things I’m grateful for:
1. safety
2. a warm home
3. poetry to capture my emotions
I believe in ends and beginnings. I believe the earth turns and we are impermanent. I believe the forests are burning and in so many ways, have been for quite a long time. Something I do not believe in: Bigfoot. I sometime do not believe in myself, but that’s a work in progress frequently in need of a few supporting beams. I believe in ends and beginnings, when the beginnings may be sweet and the ends are sour. I believe the sun will always rise, an experience we need to keep safe for the next generation. I believe our neighbors are hurting and dying and in so many ways, will continue to do so. Something I do not believe in: complete evil in humans. I often do not believe in the goodness of this world, but it is a work in progress constantly supported by many supporting beams.
I’m grateful for:
1. The support of my family and friends.
2. Other “supporting beams” in my life/around the world.
3. Cicadas
I think sometimes
we think in colors
because we are psychologically divided between black and white,
red blood and white satin.
The winter’s often mild, lately,
While we think about green, red, and black poisons.
Je pense que je suis une femme jeune ou ancienne
(parceque…)
I’m purple. Dark purple. Passionate but world weary.
We think in colors. Sometimes.
But the land doesn’t think. It is.
The cars whizz by under our feet as we cross, like a slow caravan, the bridge over the highway. The sides of the bridge are adorned with metal circles engraved with quotes about walking or biking. For instance, “I love long walks, especially when taken by ones who annoy me (unknown)” and “Don’t walk in front of me — I may not follow; don’t walk behind — I may not lead; walk beside me and just be my friend (Albert Camus).”
We pause.
My niece, a year old, dances out of her stroller and gazes down at the cars. My grandma, leaning to one side in her wheelchair, gazes at the ground, at the steel supports of the bridge, at the cars, or perhaps at images of the past. I take my eyes off my two companions and focus on the vehicles and I wonder: what are their inhabitants thinking? Is there an arguing couple? A happy, dancing-to-the-music family? When they pass under this bridge, are they looking at the structure? Or do they see us and wonder what we too are thinking? Do they see us at all?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been creating stories about people in my head. As I’ve grown up, these stories have also grown up. Some I’ve written about and some I plan to in the future. And some I’ve forgotten. Through my experiences of working with elderly and disabled clients, talking to those on the helpline, and my current internship at a nursing home, I’ve discovered simultaneously that real life can inform and better my stories more than simply my imagination and that human beings are more inspiring and grittier than any story can properly convey. Which is why I am a writer and why I am pursuing my Masters in Social Work.
With this discovery, I also have become aware of something called self-care. Self-care seems to be a “trendy” conversation piece right now, but unlike many trendy topics, it is of the upmost importance. Because I as an aspiring social worker, as well as anyone in any kind of helping position or anyone who hears/witnesses humans struggling constantly, need to take care of myself. I take care of myself in a series of little moments, like the one on the bridge with my niece and my grandma and the one I’m taking right now to write this post. Every once in a while, these moments will lead to stories that will be told in one way or another. But I’m finding, increasingly, that sometimes the best way to take care of myself, the best little moment to have or to share
is a pause.
The combined fans in my room drone on consistently, the sound drifting over to me and playing with the edges of my ponytail. Contacts sitting by my bed in their solution, my eyes glance at the paper in focus and then blindly at the shapes whizzing past my window. I know that they are cars and I know there is water glimmering and reflecting the lights of the city. I know there are trees and I know there are stairs of stone, some steps crumbling, that lead into the river. There is probably a groundhog family nestled in their hole, surrounded by leaves cascading down the hillside. There is probably a man laying under a bridge, grateful it isn’t raining. Maybe in the morning, he will walk into the city, his face toughened by the sun, his beard long, his eyes shining like the stars. This man may walk into the city, breaking bread at a community meal, saying hello to the regulars or staying silent. This man may walk into the city, wandering until he finds a place to stay for the night, be it shelter or sidewalk. This man may be given a small card with a light blue logo and 3 numbers. If so, this man may find a payphone or use his cell phone to dial those 3 numbers. A woman may pick up and say “PA211. May I have your zip code please.” And he may say that he doesn’t have a zip code, that he’s homeless, but he’s in the city. And she will try to the best of her abilities to give him a number or two that will listen to him and give him shelter.
That woman, who he might have said thank you and have a blessed day to, will not know the rest of his story, but will turn around perhaps with a smile, perhaps with a furrowed brow, her mind on the man who called when she hears a soft knock on the door and I will come in, ready to relieve her and listen to the people with stars in their eyes and the moon on their cheek.
2-1-1 is a national number that anyone can call if they need help paying rent, utilities, prescriptions or need a referral for shelter, food pantries, community meals, clothing banks, lawyers, mental health services, and more. The 2-1-1 call center that I work at also provides emotional listening support (not all of them do) for anyone who needs to talk. Our listening service is non-judgmental, confidential, anonymous, and 24/7. Just dial 1-800-932-4616.
1.
The first time I touched a moth, I shuddered. I discovered it when I crawled out of bed one morning. It was laying, motionless, presumably dead, where my right leg used to be. How long had it slept with me? Had I rolled over it and killed it? How the heck am I getting rid of it? A folded tissue answered my last question, but my revulsion remained.
The second time I touched a moth, I was amazed. Like the first time, it was purely accidental. It flew into my hand and instantly dropped into the car’s cup holder beside me. The collision site was shimmering with the moth’s wing dust, the eyeshadow like dust that gave it flight. Flight, which gave it independence and means to fend for itself. Flight, which it could not live without.
2.
She struggles with the words to describe what she is feeling. “You like being more independent,” I paraphrase what I’ve heard so far. Her breath clouds the phone for a second. “Yes.. that was the word I was looking for. Independent.”
3.
“I really admire your relationship,” my friend says, her long fingers playing with her coffee cup. “You don’t have to be together all the time. You’re independent.”
4.
I loved going to children’s chapel, which took place during the adult’s church service (boring to a five year old). When my brother was sent to get me, I would refuse to hold his hand because I could walk by myself.
5.
In the first grade, my class learned about butterflies. I was obsessed with the word, “chrysalis” for weeks, especially as we watched tiny cocoons in mason jars. I wondered what it was like inside. Was it warm, like when I was wrapped in my parent’s arms? Or was it more like a sleeping bag? Constricting, but oddly comforting? Or is it pure sleep with shadowy dreams of its caterpillar days?
When my Painted Lady butterfly broke out of its chrysalis, it fluttered quietly, discovering it now had wings. And during a warm, spring day we let them go, watching them disappear in sunlight.
We talk and talk and talk (and hope)
We talk and hope and talk and hope (and)…
The woman, soft and sparrow-like voice, drinks wine to quell anxieties.
The man, slow and slurred, depressed and agoraphobic, doubts the sun.
A homeless teen. A sex offender.
“Most people who call are lonely” is not the same as “I’m feeling alone. It’s affecting everything I do.” Potential volunteers nod when I talk about callers afflicted with loneliness and mental health problems, their eyes going deep within themselves. One says, “That’s beautiful. I’ll think about it.”
They and we and they and we talk (in silence),
in silence the words we cannot say to one another.
In the middle of the library, I set up signs, missing
and seeing those we help.
This month, I’ve been taking over the Sycamore House blog. This is one of my posts.
“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.”
– unknown
Comfort, until about two months ago, was the dry Colorado air. Comfort was knowing that the mountains are to the west. Comfort was school, papers, and my college campus.
The wilderness, in contrast, is strange and unfamiliar. I’ve found myself using my GPS more times than I’d like to admit and missing people even more than I thought I would.
When I think of a wilderness, I think first of an overgrown jungle and then the desert with nothing except for sand and possibly cacti. Quite the opposite images, right? Or not… A wilderness, really, is simply a place where your compass doesn’t always point north or rather, not the north you expected. It’s a place where there aren’t road signs detailing where and how you should go.
Harrisburg is a wilderness at times. It certainly felt so during my first week or two. But I’ve driven to work on auto pilot a few times already. I know where to get groceries and, more importantly, I know where the bookstores are and where the Chipotle is. I have not completely navigated through all that I’m doing at work, but I am slowly getting trained on using active listening and helping with the helpline and creating a volunteer recruitment plan.
My wilderness is becoming tamer. I do know where physical north is now (and I can use the river as a reference!) and I am working on clarifying my spiritual north. Will my wilderness ever become completely tame? I don’t know. After all, life is a wilderness of sorts and it changes constantly. But this year has already proved that I am not traveling alone. I have: Myself, my housemates, the wonderful people of St Stephen’s Cathedral, my family, and my friends back home.
Check out https://sycamorehousehbg.wordpress.com/to read about the program. I have one more entry to go for October and then my amazing housemates will be taking a turn.
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This year so far has been a time for service and reflection, but I have also been reading. I was lucky enough to have landed in the bedroom that has bookshelves. The shelves hold a random assortment of Messiah College yearbooks, Encyclopedias, Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, and (most wonderfully in my estimation) a 1901 Collector’s Edition of all of Shakespeare’s plays. The book that I’m reviewing today did not come from these books or the scant number of books I brought, but from a local bookstore, Midtown Scholar.
I had gone there to write. And write I did. But while I was writing (and peering at all the characters in the store), one particular book kept staring me down. The title, What the Night Tells the Day, distracted me so much that I had to get it. I wanted to know what indeed the night tells the day. And how does it tell it? Does it whisper? Does it scream?
The cover describes it as a novel, but the introduction says that it is a memoir. An endorsement on the back calls it an autobiography (which makes me inwardly cringe). Whether you call it by the outdated term “autobiography” or more truthful “memoir,” it is clear it is not a novel.
It is the story of the author, Hector Bianciotti, his childhood in Argentina and his migration to France. He relates his Italian immigrant parent’s difficulty of fitting into Argentina society, his strained relationship with his father, and his time in a monastery, all the while discovering his sexuality and his love for literature.
All memoirs are human, but I find that this one was especially human because it reveals both the good and the slightly disturbing qualities of the author. It also relays memories like we remember them: in short little bits when we are young and then clearer, more tangible moments when we are older. Since our childhood memories tend not to line up in linear order, the beginning of the memoir is a little tangled. And as Bianciotti himself says “Like some children, certain memories like to gather together their most insignificant toys.”
Like all memoirs (and most novels), What the Night Tells the Day does not really end. It has an ending, most certainly, but authors cannot write their own deaths. It does somewhat answer some of my previous questions about the book, but the answers are open for interpretation. But it tells Bianciotti’s version of the truth and that is the most memorable and the most important.
This poem is inspired by a prompt series called “The Time is Now” sent out by Poets and Writers.
“Self Portrait”
Sitting on my bed, I look around me:
the dog, asleep, on the floor, books – Dickens, Austen, J.K. Rowling -,
Freddy the Teddy resting on a decorative pillow,
and then focus on the central figure in the mirror (plain, square, slightly dirty, unlike Plath’s lake)
The face is familiarly oval;
My mom says it looks “most like me, unfortunately”
with traces of cousins and an unmet grandmother.
I see this too: my brown, almost hazel eyes and sometimes wild, but always curly hair
that seems to change shades of brun when I turn my head.
I see also remnants of a pimple and under my collarbone, a chickenpox scar.
I do not quite see my little, previous self;
she is inside me.
I do not see a writer;
the notebook and pen are not visible in my reflection.
In this room, my home for the summer,
I see me – a woman – myself – a human – and I.