Witness and Wonder

Water from the spigot rushes over red boots,

Pools gather rapidly around them,

brimful buckets sway back and forth

drenching plants already damp from the storm. 

Where would the world be without children

who fetch pails of water?

At times the kitchen sink is all they find

for the sacramental filling and pouring—

Whispers uttered over sour cream containers

submerged in a mixing bowl lake. 

People rescued, fires put out, boats capsized, 

the front of their clothing dark and heavy,

saturated with wonder.

At best, I am ready, 

towels in hand, raising shirts

bound to goose-pimpled skin. 

My breaths are deep,

pull the mind

back to the heart. 

Order is secondary.

Witness the moment

that cannot keep.

Write Anyway

This post was written on the first day of Fall.  I never finished it, but in an effort to get back to writing, I'm going to post it anyway.  I feel new courage to write.  My poetry group, Wordsong Poets, met tonight and encouraged me in my work.  It all takes time.  And memory.  And being centered.  Although this post ends on a somewhat angst-ridden moment, it is strangely uplifting.  OK.  I'm weird.  The reason I am seeing it in a positive light is because at the time I felt broken, but I WROTE anyway.  That is the point....to enter those moments and not let them lay stagnate.

Here it is...

Today is the first day of Fall.  We filled our bird feeder yesterday, and this morning I am distracted from my writing by a tufted titmouse and chickadee just two feet away.  Our cat is on high alert.  He stands at the screen door, tail flicking, and tracks the the flight path to and from the feeder.  It is all just too much for Chandler.  In the backyard, a chipmunk family.  In the front yard, a slew of birds.

Lion has been in Kindergarten for three weeks now.  He told us that he needs more than two days off.  My heart breaks.  I would home school him if I could, but I need help raising my children.  I can not do it alone, therefore my children are in the pathway of public schooling.  I feel broken.  Broken.  I used that word to describe myself to another stay at home mother once.  She laughed and said, "You are NOT broken."  Apparently that's impossible for a white suburban mother.

But I am broken.  I gave my life to big ideals for ten years.  I made huge sacrifices, but I lived in beauty with constant companionship and the ability to escape to solitude whenever I needed.  Granted, I was constantly battling an undercurrent of manipulation and emotional abuse.  But I fought to possess an interior life that was my own doing.  Because of my efforts, I was able to leave that abusive environment and retain a sense of faith and trust in God.  What I didn't anticipate was the utter brokenness that comes with possessing and then losing community.  My compass is smashed.

Where Did the Weather Go?

OK.  I'm not complaining.  After the winter we had last year, it was amAzing to have a light-handed winter this year.  But have you noticed that the months are no longer distinct?  I used to get to the end of March and recognize that March had happened in its entirety.  We had heavy winds.  We had the lion's roar at the start and soft lamb-like Spring showers decorating March's end.  As I recognize the shift in our weather over the past few years, this climate change, I'm seeing how my life longs for the ritual of the seasons.  I love to see how November is overcast, miserable, never glorious, but it gives way to crisp blue skies in December.  There is a natural rhythm to our lives.  The Church displays this in the liturgical year.  Advent prepares us for Christmas, a brief ordinary time yields its normalcy to Lent, then Easter and Pentecost proclaim celebration.  The remainder of the year is ordinary, a simple observance of life with a sprinkling of holy days throughout.

But the weather is changing.  Our world is experiencing a cosmic shift.  While many of us experience ordinary times as usual, there are countries in existential turmoil.  While I am bemoaning the loss of my vibrant New England variety, refugees are living in muddy tent-communes, existing on the generosity of others, unable to provide for their families without begging for help.

The liturgical year was my focus for years.  I relished the shifting rituals.  That was my home.  But I have found myself, these past 8 years, with freedom from practicing my faith in a prescribed manor.  I am outside my comfort zone, the manager of my own home, the leader of children I am still recognizing as mine.  I am comfortable, well fed, and have a purpose to live out in the ordinary times of motherhood.  But the world's shift is a mirror to my own.  I feel displaced, as though this world is strange and outside any reference I was ever given.  There is joy in my wild, unstructured days, but as I try and enter those moments of glee, anxiety crops up, making me turn my head and look for the ritual wherein I hope to rest.

And now the weather is unpredictable, it is shifting.  The world's boundaries are shifting...a source of anxiety and cosmic displacement for so many.  Where did the weather, the security of seasons go?  We can focus on the shift, the disturbance of earth and time, and inevitably find ourselves in the liturgy of fear and anxiety.  Or, we can play.  We can embrace the wild, the unpredictable, and look to bring comfort and stability to others.  We can care for ourselves and this good earth.  That is the only ritual we are capable of maintaining...the ritual of the "other."  That is where we can rest.