dear sojourners,
this is my third, maybe forth attempt to write a post since the start of the new year. i dash off a paragraph or two, three. join together two thoughts that i hope sound semi-cohesive. they don’t. some event erupts in the world. my words feel irrelevant. i return to my routines for comfort. morning walks with the dog. these days abandoning my flashlight as Sun crawls over the horizon earlier and earlier. noticing Robins singing with gusto as if rehearsing for spring. witnessing first shoots of Daffodils spearing through packed dirt. it all feels so “normal.”
in the small increment of Earth where i roam, winter is negotiating with spring about timing. our atmospheric Rivers of december and early january replaced by a long dry spell followed by a warming Rain. now we seesaw between rain and dry. rain and dry. temperatures not cold enough to bring Snow to the cascade Mountain range—vital to our summer Snow pack. the current Snow pack can fit in a carry-on.
so instead of trying to be tidy, this post will bounce around (lots of links.) much like the world today—unsteady. cracking open. maybe some of these thoughts will resonate. or some may annoy you. or maybe leave you curious. i am a fan of curiosity.
one morning the Sky was texture and color of dryer lint. no Rain, no blue. it seemed bored. or maybe just resting for “next.” or maybe this was Clouds’ version of sighing after witnessing federal agents gassing families at protests over the weekend. joyless Clouds.
i go about my day realizing how ordinary my life continues to be even as literally my fellow portlanders are protesting less than four miles away and risking injury (or worse)…these times are anything but “ordinary.” to be ignorant is to be complicit. i have no desire to be complicit. and i admit to being wedded to my comfort. i’m sitting with that truth. and asking how i can live in the day-to-day “ordinariness” of my life and still engage with the Grief, the Pain, the Sorrow, the all of it to be in service to this cracking open. i sit with something that Báyò Akómoláfé wrote on his facebook page january 2nd: “Sitting with the cracks is vital work. […] It requires courageous alliances and beautiful tending.” and “showing up may look stranger than we think.” i do know how to tend. how to sit in the quiet. learning how to pay even deeper attention as i apprentice with slowness. what does it look like to show up in a “strange way” though?
and even as i write the word “ordinary,” i come back to Francis Weller’s most recent book, In the Absence of the Ordinary, Soul Work for Uncertain Times. the microcosm of my wee day may feel “ordinary,” but my dreams, my intuition, how i’m listening beyond my certainty…i know better. these are not ordinary times. as i go about my days, i remind myself of that.
why i haven’t been able to “gel” a post is because my thoughts move like Water sometimes gushing from a Spring. other times moving deep as Ocean currents. nothing “threads” together, there is no weaving my thinking into a nicely quilted piece, because it all runs through my fingers and back into the Soil. (and yes, mixing metaphors.) i so want to be Water. be absorbed into the Land where i live, to hear Stories from beyond human perspectives. i know the stories of Landscapes and Seascapes are wise. (see previous post retreating into the storm.) and here i live this ordinary life where i walk my dog, shop for groceries, exercise to stay healthy, meet friends and volunteer to be part of my community. i am living a simple::complex life.
i am drawn to reading books with water themes: two of them: theory of water, Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, (mentioned in the december post) and Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. mind expanding. both invite me to look at language with fresh eyes. who named our non-human kin. who decided what is “resource.” where boundaries and borders are placed. what happens when we place any other being (including humans) in captivity. and more…
what has been gnawing at me is this poem shared by Pádraig Ó Tuama on Poetry Unbound (part of the On Being umbrella) by Oksana Maksymchuk titled Arguments for Peace. Pádraig, in this podcast, reads the poem, talks about the poem, then reads it again. an immersion. i’ll share a bit of the poem and i encourage you to go to the show and hear the whole piece.
Arguments for Peace
How could there be a war in this city with
cobblestone streets, glowing stars
in the windows, festive
dogs in felt deer antlers?
[…]
What’s a missile to do with
a concert hall full of children?
What’s an air raid to do with
a holiday celebration?
[…]
We love our children too much
We love our homes too much
and so, we argue, time and again
there’ll be no war
there’ll be no war
as i listened to the poem i thought first of my parents, both youth during the Second World War in London, my mother, 12, and father, 16, at the start. my mother having to finish school (at times being sent away to Wales) and then started working, all while having to cope with air raid sirens and bombings. my father being apprenticed to a trade (tool and dye maker) that was essential to the war effort. my mother’s father being called to serve, though he was in his late 30’s, and being away for most of the duration of the war. how this shaped the rest of theirs and their families lives. how they likely hoped, until the day the radio announcement stated they were at war with Germany, “there’ll be no war.”
then i thought about Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine (the poet who wrote this poem is Ukrainian) and other wars (named as a war or not) that proliferate our planet. about folks living in Minneapolis and other cities in my own country have been leading “ordinary” lives (which may not be “comfortable” but at least have a sense of rhythm) and when war and conflict arrive are startled into the unknown. how we think it won’t happen. “they” wouldn’t go that far. “they” always do (and oh, the power of “they”.) maybe that is what is sadly ordinary.
i start most days by reading/listening to poetry. the poems that are coming out of Minneapolis weave images and metaphors together in a way that enter the body differently than a news report. same with Gaza, Ukraine, and on and on. here is one shared by Pádraig Ó Tuama recently on his substack:
From Minneapolis in January
We live in the numbness
of an occupied city
where every story has another
story curled inside its labyrinth—
and when Sleep reads
to you at bedtime, it is
the nested one that comes
slinking out to sew you,
with tiny stitches and
scarlet thread, to the mattress.
It is a story that believes itself
to be permanent (an odd word,
because nothing is),
a story that is somehow
made of white light
bent and glaring to illuminate
what happened, then tell you
it did not happen. Dawn
slowly washes every face
sleeping in the pale grey
mop-water of its light.
Yet nobody awakens
and we cannot say why.
The answer is simple. Death
has come here on holiday
from the coast, yet its cousin
Sleep remains in charge.
Our nightmare is the waking.
what stirs in you as you read this poem? for me power of poetry is what it stirs inside. it can touch places in us in surprising ways. i have several poetry feeds, both via email and podcasts, come into my daily orbit. they start my days like a cup of tea—both grounding and invigorating. some remind me to be kind. or i find myself weeping. i feel rage. or deep sadness. or curious. i never feel nothing.
my own poetry writing muscle has atrophied the last couple of years, so i joined The Stafford Challenge. the invitation is to write a poem-a-day. no one “checks” to make sure you are on task, but i did sign up to join a small group. so far, i am writing something daily, but nothing shareable.
here are a few of poetry links i recommend:
The Slowdown: Poetry and Reflection (podcast: weekdays)
Poem-a-Day (receive a daily poem in your inbox)
Rattle Poetry (receive a daily poem in your inbox)
Poetry Unbound (seasonal)
if you have favorites, please share in the comments. or share a poem you have written.
at the start of the year-ish, i pull together images, poems, words that resonate. two Ada Limón poems that were Water related came through as well as a Báyò Akómoláfé prayer. the photo of the Snail on my photo roll to remind me to go slow. a card to remind me i am deeply loved with a Crow because Crows. a card from Carolyn Hillyer’s Weavers Oracle deck that reminds me that stories are connected to Landscapes, Rocks. to know the Land is to be connected to ancient wisdom. this is like my personal and strange map for navigating cracks…as if one can navigate cracks.
for your reflection:
some folks have mixed feelings about poetry (it isn’t always presented in a expansive way when we are young.) as you consider my thoughts on poetry, what are you curious about?
in these shifting times, do you sense a shift in how you are called to engage?
how wedded are you to comfort? how are you with holding the tension of that with the unraveling at the edges or cracks forming around you? (okay maybe this reflection question i am pondering for myself…)
what does it look like to care for yourself as you care for others?
and finally (as if anything is final), i continue to focus on kindness as i go about my daily movements. we are all immersed in these times of cracking open, whether it still feels ordinary to someone whose path i am crossing or not. i don’t know anyone else’s story. what is stirring inside their inner Landscape. the poem “Small Kindnesses” by Danusha Laméris reminds me a small gesture may be a balm. this doesn’t mean being complicit (again that word) to injustice, but in the day-to-day of life, i value approaching life with an expanded heart.
in gratitude,
anne
ps: a dear friend in the local writing community died friday and the tributes have been flooding facebook. steve arndt was a kind, gentle human and so so supportive of my writing. of everyone’s writing. the writer Nancy Townsley wrote a beautiful tribute on her Substack that i recommend: “a great wide heart, stilled,.”