Curiosity ~ Lucidity ~ Humanity
Children are signposts for those of us who give birth to them, adopt, or foster them, care for and teach them. They lead us all into “worlds" we may never have encountered had we had only ourselves to look after.
I see children as diminutive conduits into the vibrancy of Life. As they grow, they gather, assemble, and harvest their experiences. Their feelings and understandings untangle the world around them as they ripen like golden wheat in summer.
My experiences of motherhood have shown me that children process and organize our worlds as well as their own. I have seen them do so in ways so perspicuous as to be deserving of the word exquisite. Some, of course, are more complicated than others. All surely challenge our perceptions, affect our moods, engage our affections, our energies and our minds. They delight and tire us. Some break our hearts while others provide us with matchless joy.
I have always imagined that children help us to refine the sinews of our brains into bioluminescence. And, like the woolly siphonophore, they stretch seeking food. We feed them until such a time as they can do for themselves. We cradle, hold, hug them and encourage their first steps toward autonomy. Through touch they gain reassurance and confidence. They thrive when knowing they are not alone. As do we.
Children evolve. They depend on us for a time before separating from their adult supports and moving into their own lives. When mine first did, I was desolate. Curiously, jelly fish came to mind and I recalled that some detach gracefully and float away; others remain anchored by a stalk to their seabed homes. Do these different trajectories not apply to children as well?
When our children leave home most of us hope it will be to return frequently. Some do. Some do not. Either way, we are all indelibly imprinted with the textures and colors they infuse into our very beings. They are both part of us and part of something beyond us. While following them as they scatter breadcrumbs to predestined or chosen destinations, we hone our parenting skills.
Children affect us profoundly. I believe that they define and refine us.
Sitting on twin chairs
We two lovers rock back and forth
Thinking of all the places
We have been
Where we floundered
But not foundered
Where children’s voices
Sharp and their laughter bell like
Can still be heard
Dawning on a distant horizon
You saw a blood red moon
Shying away into obscurity
You said:
Now that the children are gone
I feel draped in loneliness
I responded: Once they consumed our lives
And now they have flown
One day
Upon waking
We look at one another
Our hearts ragged with the loss
The press of the empty house
Too much to bear still
Once upon a time
The future loomed
Large in their small childish hands
These diminutive beings
Grown too swiftly
Gone too briskly
Much too soon
And we, you ask,
Reaching for a hand to hold
What of us then?
We encouraged and sheltered them
Fed and loved and led them
Until, standing on the ledge of life,
Perfect flight feathers in place
They unfurled their wings
And with a whoosh
A swooping dive
A brisk resolve
They departed
Let us sigh with relief
You say
Now it’s our time
I answer
Yes, let us let go of sadness
Refuse to be smitten with grief
And contemplate our empty nest
As a cherished space
In the firmament of Solitude
Tomorrow we shall watch another sunrise
Stop a while and remember
reach out with a tender word
A loving touch
And smile
We have persevered
Oh, my dear,
Your departures are so familiar
Yet always accompanied by that
Little ache,
fresh each time,
Welling up around my heart
I glance over and find
Your porch is empty
Save for the smooth, pale stone
Sitting ever so sagely
On the rarely used ping pong table
A gift of friendship perhaps?
Your things are there
But you are gone
And the empty house
Feels as hollow as does my heart
Time after time
—Though my imagination brings you home—
Your absence reigns heavy
Thick as a too thick blanket in summer
Muting deep tones of despondency
Which, in the presence of absence
Resonate like your contralto voice
Memories bring to mind
Long forgotten notes,
Harmonic singing
As well as the once upon a time
Deep timber of B’s cello
Neglected for years
Asleep on its side
Above the dusty china cabinet
I listen and I remember
Last year you painted your walls
A cream color
Or was it eggshell white?
I first see it in shadow
Through the small door window
you called “My peep hole”
I know your kitchen door is left unlocked
And so I walk in and stand stock still
my ears perked, listening,
waiting for a word of welcome
The house creaks
And the resident lizards scurry
Their gait undulating
Like the waves of sadness
Pulsing through me
I feel them acutely
When no human voice responds
I fill a small critter dish with water
For my unfailing companions
As silence jounces off every surface
A tight warmth shoots up my spine
Rising and I catch myself hyperventilating
Is this a sense of panic, a hot flash,
Or a misbegotten response to loss
To feeling relinquished?
I stand and reminisce about Christmases past
When you were present
When Harmony played a fugue
And the house pulsed with song and laughter
I wonder:
Will ever you be back for the holidays?
Now, as summer manifests
Puffing out its stifling heat
I wander through the cool spaces
Of the nest you have created
A bouquet of leaves drying
Atop a book case
Groaning with books
Reflecting your greatest passions
I am breathing without you
And begin to shuffle from room to room
My feet assuming my sadness
As I strive to sense your essence
In those things you left behind
Where shall I find solace?
Pictures stare at one another
As I stare back
Papers and photos sit stacked,
unmoving tokens of your life
Their presence mute yet speaking volumes
I listen and I ponder
Allowing for tears sprouting unbidden
Yet I feel the certainty of my strength
Leading me toward recovery
I know I shall overcome the loss
I chant a mantra
in the silence between verses
I imagine throat singing monks
Nuns their heads shaved
And I conjure up serene spirits
On which to pattern myself
Outside
As nature awakens
A ghost of you saunters in
Sliding by like a small, pink cloud
Beckoning to the rising sun
In concert with the chirping birds
Their names well studied by you
Their songs familiar and reassuring
Joy beckons hatching out of sorrow
Until Darkness settles
Ushering in yet another night
And a jolt of energy
Catapulting Fear
into that realm we call Hope
Memories begin to blanket the scene
Unravelling and as intense in color
As the striped Serape
I brought with me to cover your sofa
Again,
The house whispers:
"A week must pass…”
I complete the sentence
As if engaged in a form of call and response
“Be brave,” it continues
Addressing my still bruised heart
And gradually, like a warm stream of water
My ragged breathing becomes coherent
I feel my body let go
And myself surrendering to what is
Finally, astonished by relief,
I begin to settle into the familiarity of your absence
to taste and savor my solitude
As I begin yet another journey to finding myself.
"Once upon time” is how many stories begin. It is also a phrase which launches memories which carry our stories.
In the oral traditions of my native Egypt stories were repeated both in prose and in verse. They often began with: “Once there was….” followed by the introduction of a character as in: “Once there was a queen beloved of her subjects...” It might end with “And so it came to pass that when she left her body, they could still sense her presence in every rainbow…" Conclusions were always followed by the phrase “Toota Toota Ferghet al Haddouta” meaning that the story had “emptied itself out”. It had come to an end.
In so many ways memories are like that; assertive or fleeting, vivid or veiled. They carry us in their wake.
A verse from Bob Dylan’s song “Open the Door Homer” recorded in the 1960’s comes to mind: "Take care of your memories for you cannot relive them….” Of course, there is always Dr. Seus who wrote: “Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory…” Or Mark Twain’s "When I was younger, I could remember anything… Soon I shall not remember any but the things that never happened…”
I like to walk in cemeteries and ponder what memories have accumulated underground over time. I look at tombstones and read epitaphs. One encountered at the City Cemetery in Salt Lake City, Utah where I lived for some years stayed with me.
Engraved on a slab of grey granite it is visible from the street and reads:
Remember me as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now so will you be
Prepare for death and follow me
In so many ways memories are like storytellers of old. They may be recurring or fleeting. We might catch them on the wing as they fly by or stumble upon them unbidden. Other times we might fish them out of our museum of recollections. They may be triggered by an image, a smell, a song, the timber of someone’s voice or simply a sensation. As they glide through us we might add detail or or leave them be. Memory, after all is selective and, as Virginia Wolfe wrote, "Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after."
For me, memories are story tellers as well as familiar harbors. They assure us of our passage on our home planet and insure our survival as energy long after we are gone.
Memories move like shadows
Elusive yet they lead us on paths
to finding the past
Memories
move like sand dunes
but not moveable feasts
Remembrances
appear veiled
like ethereal graces
holding our places
in the scheme of things
Though hard to catch
when they are captured
they carry us tethered to time
on journeys remembered
moving our thoughts along
like sand repeatedly raked
in a Japanese garden
As we recall
we call upon moments gone by
fleeting though they may be
to give credence to past lives
sometimes reliving them
As we remember do we not recover bygone days?
Memories fill our hearts to brimming
shedding light
on life's spaces
Inhabited repeatedly
in the here and now
and long long ago