Poetry

So I just found out a little while ago that April is National Poetry Month.  How cool is that?!  A whole month celebrating this creative outlet of words in various forms, all laden with meaning and feeling and goodness.  In honor of that, I decided to share a few poems that I have been working on--they are not finished exactly, but I'm working on them.  Yet part of me feels like it may be a while before that work is finished; a joy and burden of wrestling with words.

Bright, vibrant spring green,

a promise of abundance.  

If but well tended.  

Raindrops on branches, 

suspended, glisten like pearls. 

Nature's adornment.

Autumn leaves descend,

Crimson, orange, yellow, brown. 

Change made beautiful.

Words.  Feelings, 

hopes tied up in letters.  

A soft fawn colored paper wrapped package, 

unmarked but intriguing, waiting.   

Meaning as varied as the audience that reads them, 

opens them, writes them, shares them, 

cherishes them, loves them.  

Each package to each individual a different gift,

sometimes what is sent differs from what is received, 

but with that, 

a world of potential and value and richness, waiting.  

Broken Hearts

First, a disclaimer.  This IS NOT a rant about a breakup or anything of the mushy-gushy sort, a fact I feel I must clarify, partly because I feel like I always associated broken hearts with romance as though the phrase was patented by whatever pop singer happened to be the latest rage.  I shrugged off just about anything that referred to hearts being broken as something that didn't apply to me because I didn't intend to do any heart breaking or to experience it for myself.  But, after much reflection and stepping outside my shallow definition of a broken heart, I found that I have had a broken heart, many times, and from that have found a glorious ocean of wisdom and understanding and love.  And I just wanted to share a little bit about that.

Second, an apology.  I feel like here I spew my thoughts with intention to clean them up before presenting them to anyone, but they just sort of slip past that clean up phase more often than I would like to admit.  So my apologies if what is written here fails to make sense or end up as rambles rather than something worth reading.  Also, thank you, dear reader, for indulging such a long prologue.

I just finished reading a wonderful book by Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  While a children's book, I found it deep and moving, absolutely refreshing and much needed after some rather jagged literature that I had encountered earlier that week.  It follows a china rabbit who experiences several unexpected turnovers in his life and changes because of them and the people involved with them.  He learns to love, but not without heartbreak, and his story deepened my understanding of the phrase.  It may be considered juvenille, I feel like love is really a timeless, ageless theme, not limited to one age group.  DiCamillo begins with a quote from a poem called "The Testing-Tree" by Stanley Kunitz and I feel like today, it resonated with me. "The heart breaks and lives by breaking."  

My heart broke today.  I realized that it was time to change and while that was good and I knew it was coming and I was looking forward to it, being confronted by the reality of it--an actual time when I was expected in a place other than home and its surroundings--stunned me and I sort of reeled for a little bit.  That heartbreak didn't happen because I was rejected or spurned or was let go, it happened because my life as I knew it was changing.  I feel like change--at least for often stiff, inflexible me--invariably brings with it a break in me somewhere.  Yet, thats not a bad thing, really.  Yes, it means pain, ache, hurt.  But it is good to be broken.  It means that one can be restored and helped--if we seek it out and receive it.  I love scriptures that refer to broken hearts:

"And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.  3 Nephi 9:20

  "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; 
   and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."  Psalms 34:18

I think that life includes a lot of broken heart periods.  I hope that I can receive it, with the hope of becoming more wise and understanding and sensitive rather than recoil from it and become bitter about it.

How do you embrace having a broken heart?

Sick

This past week I was sick, dear reader.  I caught a bug of some kind that gave me 4 days of wiped out, feverish, achy, I-break-a-sweat-when-I walk-more-than-20-steps-though-mentally-perfectly-sound-and-thus-feeling-stir-crazy time.  Yet the whole experience has been really clarifying for me as I thought about how I was not entirely well emotionally, mentally, or spiritually--not hugely malignant problems mind you, but I was ill or wounded and needed treatment just as badly as my physical body.  Those unseen issues were a little bit harder to find and take care of, though as I examined them I felt that I could see the poor effect that my incompleteness took on me.  I feel like I needed to experience weakness and recovery physically so that I could internalize and apply it to myself emotionally, mentally, and physically.  And while I still have a lot to learn, I think that I grasped some ideas that have translated to a better understanding of becoming whole.  

Recovery takes time.  I had things I thought I needed to or wanted to do and being sick just threw a wrench in my timetable.  For a little while I got frustrated, irked that I didn't have the ability to do what I felt was necessary, in the time that I wanted to accomplish it.  I focused on me--what I could not do, what I needed to do, and when I needed to do it--but soon grew weary of that approach because it zapped whatever energy I did have.  I realized what was expedient and what was not and felt better able to do what mattered and let go of whatever I was clinging to that didn't really actually hold much weight, all things considered.  Getting better was a really gradual process for me this time around, and I think that by having it drawn out and having a little bit of improvement each day helped me appreciate the improvement and savor it and rejoice in it.

You'll need to recover more than once.  While that recovery may not be for the same illness, our bodies encounter more than one sickness and we confront more than one type of challenge, weakness, or hardship in our lifetimes.  Thankfully, its natural to be sick and brought low multiple times--and it just leaves you stronger and more resilient for whatever lies ahead.  

Letting others know helps.  Others care about you and I feel like they really show it when you share with them that you are not well and in need of help.  They may not know exactly how to do so, but I feel like witnessing others' earnest desire to and efforts to help really made me feel secure and taken care of, even when I still felt really not well.

Being sick helps you appreciate being healthy all the more.  I have a lot more wonder and gratitude about my body and cells and rest and good food and a whole bunch of other things now that I have been restored to health.  Its pretty awesome the way that our body responds when we call upon it to exert or rest or do anything really.  And our mind and heart and spirit are the same way--responding to our choices and decisions to act, albeit a little harder to direct or guide than our physical body.

I feel like through being sick, I realized just how much of a gift being well is and how beautiful and good it is to be whole.  It is really a gift.

recovery |riˈkəvərē|

noun

1 a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength

2 the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost