St. John’s wort drooping
from the weedy embankment
in the hot July sun
Cranky List / Gratitude List
Things that make me cranky:
- waking up feeling worse than when I went to bed
- trading one set of medication side effects for another
- feeling my body getting heavier and older
- expecting to be able to exercise the way I used to when I was 25 and at the peak of training
- days when the only thing I seem fit to do is putter around the house and take in a matinee
- Boston’s schizophrenic spring weather
- focusing on my own needs and the ways they’re not being met
- getting away from support systems that help me feel connected
- pollyanna-ish spiritual literature that tells me to just focus on the positive! and everything will be fine!
- focusing on the things that make me cranky, especially when they’re things I can’t control
Things that make me happy:
- posting cranky status updates on Facebook (and the one or two people who say they can identify)
- comparing the treatments available today to what people used to endure 50-60 years ago
- considering advances in genetic research that may make it easier for doctors to pinpoint which kinds of medication will be most effective for individuals with my illness
- friends and mentors who can say the sorts of things that snap me out of negative thinking and help me focus on what will work
- reconnecting with support systems that remind me I am part of beloved community
- focusing on how I can be of service instead of on what I can get — or what I think I SHOULD be getting
- remembering that work is a wonderful opportunity to be of service
- making moderate progress while conserving energy — sometimes this is better than exhausting myself by FIXING ALL THE THINGS
- identifying small, achievable tasks toward a larger goal — and checking them off a task list
- putting stickers next to completed items on my task lists
- remembering that all things pass — even the line in the Post Office on a Saturday afternoon
- moderate exercise
- intense exercise (in moderation)
- dancing at weddings
- professional massages
- hot tubs and steam rooms
- inexpensive (and free) self-care, like a spa day at home
- vanilla-scented bubble bath
- taking myself on an artist date
- reading 101 artist date ideas
- the unwinding feeling that comes with relaxation — in all kinds of ways, expected and unexpected. Sometimes in meditation, sometimes when I’m laying in a big bed all by myself, sometimes when I’m in a field of grass in warm weather, sometimes when I’m sitting with a cup of tea and looking at the trees as the sky fades from blue to darker blue.
- the first time in 2014 that I smell rain on unfrozen soil
April on Its Way Haiku
the sun
the snow
the open window
Wild Turkeys Haiku
three turkeys forage
along the side of the road
on my way to work
Hammond Pond Reservation, Green Line crossing
For five extra minutes you follow the path
through mayapple, sarsaparilla and anxiety
over a little hill and through
what might be blueberry and poison ivy
with beech and oak and maple rustling overhead
to a pond, a flooded field really
and the curl of wind over its flat surface
and the beaten-down dried rushes
and a barrier of stones
upon which rests
a butterfly with black, gold-tipped wings
thirty seconds later, you turn to see
the Riverside Line cross,
two green trolleys
over the silent water
Empty Pond, Full Sky
what does it mean to be empty
and what does it mean to be full?
empty air
over the still glass
surface of the pond
empty belly
geese make
full-throated calls,
expectant
on a monday after the clocks change–
magic hour of daylight
missing hour of sleep
banks empty
still winter-brown
the fluttering sound
of a goose
drinking from the pond
she glides across
empty water, swirling,
then still
after her passing
the park full
of people stunned
at the way winter falls away
the playground full
of children shouting
in foreign tongues
pen drops from my hand
over the empty boulder
into the clear water
rests on the empty bottom
my womb, empty again
this moment
full of silence
this mind
full of the moment
blessed
empty
Two February Haiku: Sunlight, Startled Deer
afternoon sun slants
shows the marsh in a new light
witch hazel, hemlock
three deer in the trees
bound away with startled tails
tiny wild island
The Move: After
Wednesday 12/21/2011
Solstice. The Longest Night. The shortest day. We wake at 6:00 a.m. or thereabouts, with the windows outside still black. Day dawns rainy, chilly, but not freezing cold; it’s in the 50s on the solstice. Still, we know that January and February — the real bitch-winter months — have yet to come.
I’m hurrying to get through these pages because M has already left and the movers are coming to his house at 9:00 a.m. They were late, so very, very late, when they came to my house on the 17th. Five hours late. By the time they were done unloading the truck, it was 10:00 p.m. And I tipped them anyway.
Stop for a moment and be still. Know that the Goddess is with me always, the door as close at my own heart. Invite Her to walk with me today, to travel with me.
And with the invitation comes gratitude for M, my life’s partner, my heart’s desire. The first man in this lifetime I’ve trusted enough to intertwine with like this. Gentle soul, sensitive and real — and still a man, unaware of his privilege and its effect on me, as unaware as I must have seemed to Quick, as a white woman partnered with a Puerto Rican.
Echoes of Quick, echoes of April, all the myriad mistakes I made in the past and learned from — and learned from. All the bumps and stumbles in the dark we made in our marriages, because lesbians have always known what the state denies: that marriage begins when you rent the U-Haul and put two sets of china in the same cabinet, not when you rent a church and put two sets of relatives in the same function hall.
All the bittersweet lessons I learned from my lovers, and all the savory friendships and sisterhoods I’ve been blessed with since.
Anaphase and I, two bright minds burning in the darkness. Lucy’s gentle soul, pregnant and fulfilled, endless source of love and compassion. Two things I’d never expected to have in this lifetime: straight women as my good, good friends.
The Goddess in all her guises, made manifest around me.
What joy and passion to be alive, in this place, at this time. Oh brave new world, that has such wonders in it!
January Haiku: Woods Under Snow
deep snow on the trail
spreads the ground under dark bark
winter. silence. here.
November Haiku: Yellow Leaves on the Ground
leaves against grey sky
winter’s chill but still yellow
carpeting the ground
standing on sunshine
while all around you winter
winches tight its grip
Garden of Words 