the fragility of life

At times, it strikes me all over again how fragile life really is. Someone can go to work, go on a road trip, plan a future, only to turn around and have it all snatched away by death. A facebook update of "I'm going shopping" becomes the last thing a person writes. In the face of certain death at an uncertain time, our plans mean little and should never be taken for granted.

Last night, I attempted to jot down a series of unpredictable, transient images that (hopefully) leave an impression about the nature of life. Today I strung them together to create a poem of sorts. Not my best work, but it's heartfelt.

Life

It will slide across your eyes like film.
It will brush past your arm like wind.
It will sweeten your tongue like wine.
It will pass like a storm on the move.

It will escape your desire to control.
It will shift beneath you like sand.
It will shatter like a pot of dropped clay.
It will slip through your fingers like water.

You will expect it to bend to your will
But it cannot be compelled or cajoled.
You will spend your days grasping for it
But in the moment of reckoning you cannot make it stay.

Parts of it will slip away
Like water through your fingertips.
It’s breath snatched by the wind.
It’s life.

pithy poems

I love poetry of all kinds, but some of my favourites are the short, succinct ones that "pack a punch" in a few simple words. For example, one of my all-time favourite poems is this one by Margaret Atwood:

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye


Here are a couple of my own, written over the past few years:

a moment of clarity

I witnessed a thing of intense beauty
and wanted to share it with you.

Then I realized
that the thing was no less beautiful
without you there.


Spent

She has nothing left
to say
to think
to feel.

She lays panting
gasping for words:

a fish out of water

slapping uselessly
on the cold cement of indifference.


And here's one I just wrote today, although the idea for it has been floating around in my head for awhile. I'm not that crazy about it, because I don't think it fully captures the intensity of my feeling in the moment of inspiration. But it's a beginning.

heartbeat

the susurration of your blood
can be minimized to something clinical,
identified as your pulse

but lying here with you,
it's your heartbeat inside my ear
that sets the rhythm of my breathing
and echoes my contentment

inside out

The story's inside me.
I can feel it:
a heartbeat,
breath.

I know it's there
but it's shifty:
wind.

Yet there's a solidity to it;
a form that's too immense
to comprehend,
to grasp.
I can't get my arms around it,
underneath it.

My story is a wind-blown boulder,
it's most illusive facet:
I can't get inside it.

I won't be able to
coax the story out
until I decipher the maze,
become Theseus
or even better Daedalus:
redesign the labyrinth.

The difficulty:
how to birth the story.

Revelation:
It cannot be told until,
rather than the story being inside me,
I'm inside the story:
living it
breathing it
stamping it on the page.

time to read

I love having time to read again... in the past few days, I read two books:
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah and Helpless by Barbara Gowdy. Both were disturbing in their own way and yet both taught me some important things.

A Long Way Gone is primarily disturbing due to the fact that it's a true account of a young boy's experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. The things he does are truly horrifying and the way he describes them is both mesmerizing and apalling. Several times I had to skim passages because they were too graphic. Yet I am glad I read it, not only because it's been sitting on my shelf for well over a year, but also because it opened my eyes to the reality of civil war in many parts of the world. I often feel so sheltered from so much of what goes on in the world. No matter how hard I try, there is no way I can even begin to imagine this reality: "...soon enough, people began going about their daily business of searching for food, even though stray bullets were likely to kill them" (p.207). We are so incredibly blessed in North America, yet so stubbornly blind to the peace and freedom we have. (Which, on a side note, is part of what frustrates me so much about people complaining about us having troops in Afghanistan. If Canada were the war-torn, Taliban-controlled country, wouldn't we want and need any outside help we could get? But I'm getting distracted...) While there is much to take away from this memoir, the thing that stood out to me was Beal's question, asked several times throughout the book, of why he was the one in his family to survive. I think this memoir answers that question very poignantly.

Helpless is a fictional novel, written from several points of view, about the abduction of Rachel, an exceptionally beautiful nine-year-old girl, by a struggling pedophile. Ron, the abductor, believes himself to be in love with Rachel, and also believes she is being abused. When he snatches Rachel, he believes he is rescuing her. Throughout the novel, Ron struggles with his desire for Rachel and his determination to provide a better life for her. As I said, there is much disturbing content in this novel, but ultimately it is a novel that forces the reader to reconsider preconceived notions about many different types of people. I highly recommend it.

I've now moved on to reading Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood. So far it is fascinating. More to come on this series of essay/lectures.

how water reflects relationships

friendships and relationships have always been extremely important to me and one of the things that I have had a difficult time adjusting to is the fact that, by their very nature, relationships change. friendships are hard work, and as soon as one person begins to lessen the amount of effort he or she puts into the relationship, it becomes off-balance. sometimes I'm the one who backs off, often it's the other person... sometimes, ironically, you're so in sync you both begin stepping back at the same time; those are easier to adjust to, because it's easier to accept that the friendship was only intended for a certain time and space. I've come to a certain peace about the knowledge that most relationships in our lives will only be for a limited period of time and that we should be thankful for the blessing they are when we are in the midst of them. it seems that most friendships won't last a lifetime; they will end, whether they are cut off suddenly or gradually fade away. here's a (as yet unedited) poetic musing that tries to capture the sense of this idea, as well as reflect my feelings about some of the friendships I have had in my life:

Our friendship is under water.
It used to be that the surface was still as glass...
when I looked at you it mirrored me
and it felt familiar, true, and real.
A breeze of contention would ripple the surface now and then...
things would be blurred,
perhaps a little cloudy from the disturbance,
but soon the smooth reflection reappeared to reassure me... us.

Now the wind of resignation has picked up
and the surface is marred so badly
I only catch glimpses of what once was.
Many of those glimpses are unrecognizable,
distorted as they are by the swells of dissention.
On the odd occasion a pocket of water is distilled into a reminder
of the way things used to be.
It happens less and less often...
I can't quiet or calm the storm...
I can hope it will blow over,
but I know we will never recover.

We're drowning in the waves
that hide us from each other.

for my sisters

I am intensely proud of both of you, yet there are shades of jealousy in each feeling of pride.

One, for your ability to weave words in a way that I have always dreamed of doing. It's not so much that I am envious of your greater talent, although I believe yours is greater than my own; it's more that you have taken the plunge and immersed yourself in the writing life. You've dedicated yourself to the craft and you've learned how to open yourself to the muse and to stay faithful to her, regardless of the risks - including judgment - that such an opening entails. You inspire the creative artist in me.

One, for your dedication to the craft of motherhood. It's not so much that I am envious of your sons, although I want my own children; it's more that you consistently strive to be a homemaker in the true sense of the word. You refuse to listen to the seductive voice of convenience in our society and you strive to create a high-quality, simple home life for your boys. Your courage and commitment to try all things "handmade" inspires the ambitious domestic in me.

You are both incredibly strong women who have achieved something in each of your lives that I desire for my own life; hence the smidgen of jealously. However flawed my admiration, I am honoured to call myself your sister. I can only hope to emulate each of you at some point in my life.

first steps

here I go, entering the world of blogging. it's a bit of an adventure for me, although I'm unsure why... I guess because it makes me semi-accountable for writing every day, which is my goal for July and August.

here are my unedited thoughts for today:

I've been trying to tell you how it is with me
how I hold this truth, no this TRUTH, inside of me
how I want to push it past my tongue
and share what I know

but I cannot tell you

it gets caught in my throat
I choke on the hardness of it, the sharpness
there's no way to clarify what I know
without you facing the facade of judgment
that the Truth seems to present

my explanation stumbles
therefore you stumble
and the reflection I hope to be
becomes smoke and mirrors
rather than a glimpse into the Soul of Truth