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Archive for May, 2014

For most of this past month, I have been in Toronto, the city that still has my heart.  I had time to spend with my daughter and granddaughter, visit a few old friends, and explore again, the neighborhoods I used to frequent on a daily basis.  When I first arrived there, the weather was still cool, and the trees barely sported buds, but by the time I left, sidewalks were shaded by canopies of green, and forsythia, tulips and rhododendrons bloomed.

In San Diego, Spring has been nearly nonexistent, and the continuing drought, some days of unseasonably high temperatures, and my husband’s forgetting to water the plants on our deck, left me feeling as dull and parched as the landscape that greeted me as I returned.  I was feeling sorry for myself, unable to “see” with an open heart or mind– until later in the day, as I began to sort through the pile of mail that had accumulated on my desk.

There were four postcards addressed to me and waiting to be read, the remnants of a writing exercise and “challenge” I’d offered my Moores UCSD Cancer Center writers several weeks ago, one that grew out of a favorite poet’s cancer experience, and one I’ve written about before in my blogs.

Ted Kooser, the former poet laureate of the U.S. developed prostate cancer in the late 1990s, forcing him to give up his writing and his position as an insurance executive.  He was, as he described it, “depressed by my illness, preoccupied by the routines of my treatment, and feeling miserably sorry for myself.  I’d all but given up on reading and writing…”  He began a routine of taking early morning walks and before long, surprised himself by “trying my hand at a poem.  Soon,” he said, “I was writing every day…”

Kooser began pasting his daily poems on the backs of postcards and sending them to his longtime friend, author Jim Harrison.  The result was his collection of poems,   Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison published in 2000.  In the poems,Kooser did not refer directly to his cancer, but instead, inspired by what he observed on his walks, considered life and death through metaphor and simile.

March 18

Gusty and warm

I saw the season’s first bluebird
this morning, one month ahead
of its scheduled arrival.  Lucky I am
to go off to my cancer appointment
having been given a bluebird, and,
for a lifetime, have been given
this world.

Kooser’s little book inspired me to become more observant as I walk in the early morning, noticing those small gifts of nature and beauty rather be preoccupied with the day’s tasks.  Now I have incorporated his routine, writing a short poem, rarely longer than five or seven lines, capturing something I’ve observed, something that leads to a metaphor or reflection for what I’m feeling or experiencing.

I’d picked up Kooser’s book again a few weeks ago, as I often do with many of the poetry books I have on my shelves, and re-read his poems.  Then I had an idea.  “Why not invite my writing group participants to write a postcard poem?”  Rather than focus on cancer, why not encourage everyone to take a single observation from nature and turn it into a short poem?

I introduced Kooser’s book and read from it before handing a postcard to each person–on one side, a picture, but on the other, blank, for writing a note.  The instructions were simple.  In the coming week, notice one thing in nature and from it, write a short poem, a haiku, free verse, it didn’t matter.  (The nice thing about postcards is that writing a poem inside the small space available makes poetry far less intimidating to try).  We’d share them the following week, I said, before adding, on impulse, “Send me a postcard poem, and I promise I’ll send you one back.”

“Really?”

Yes, I said, repeating the offer.  “Write me a postcard poem, and I’ll write one for you.”

Within a few days, postcard poems from several members of the group arrived in my mailbox.  Each bore the date and a short description of the weather, just as Kooser’s did, for example, “sunny & bright,” “windy, windy, windy,” or “hot and clear with fires.”  And on the back of each card, a poem, three lines to nine, all capturing a single moment of observation and coupled with a reflection.  True to my word, I wrote back on a postcard with poem of my own.

That was six weeks ago, and our writing group series has adjourned until September.   I didn’t expect  five more postcard poems would be waiting for me as I returned from my trip.  Some in the group are still finding inspiration and enjoyment in the little gifts of noticing and then sharing the poems that result.   For example, N. wrote about walking toward the entrance to the cancer center:

Sleepwalking, I remember to observe…

A tousled haired two-year old…

selects twigs for her bouquet.

Dead brush to me, possibilities

and wonder for her. 

 

And from R., a reflection on doing this year’s tax preparations during his cancer treatment:

 

I realize where I am.

And where I’ve been.

Once again I’ve have crossed into another first in my life

for now, for the first time,

I am happy to do taxes.

 

J., another in our group, began illustrating her cards, painting small watercolor flowers on one side and writing a poem on the other, inspiring me to use some of my sketches for mine.  I doubt the writers knew how their cards would bring me such joy—but they have.  Even now, as I write this blog post, the clouds have begun to disappear and the sunlight is blanketing the trees, making the view from my window come to life again…or is it the fact that I have remembered, thanks to the gifts of these postcard poems, to be present, to be fully aware and attentive to the beauty in front of me?

I have some postcard poems to write today.  I’ve even printed one of my sketchbook drawings to serve as a postcard picture, inspired by J.’s watercolors.  My jet lag seems to have disappeared.  My spirits have lightened.  And I’m smiling.

Why not try writing  a postcard poem and sharing it with someone?  In this world of texting, Facebook and Twitter, I sometimes feel our ability to be attentive to what is life-giving, how the extraordinary can be discovered in the ordinary, or how utterly beautiful nature can be, is  lost when our eyes are so focused on the screen and  shorthand our written communication has become.   Cancer or any other life-altering illness demands more than a text or a Facebook post to express its impact, how  lives are changed by it.  A short little postcard poem shared between friends or loved ones helps us remember how precious sour lives are , how remarkable the beauty is just outside our windows waiting to be discovered.

March 20

The vernal equinox

 

How important it must be

so someone

that I am alive, and walking,

and that I have written

these poems.

This morning the sun stood

right at the end of the road

and waited for me.

 

(Ted Kooser, Winter Morning Walks, 2000).

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…two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(From “The Road Less Traveled,” by Robert Frost)

It’s a familiar poem, one you were likely introduced to it in a high school English class.  Frost’s portrayal of a traveler choosing a direction as he comes to the fork in a road, is a metaphor for life. We make choices daily, between one thing or the other, weighing the benefits, costs, and risks.  Sometimes we play it safe; other times we do as  Frost’s traveler did, and we take the road “less traveled by.”

I’ve been mulling over choices—ones made nearly 25 years ago, when my husband and I decided to return to California from Canada—and now considering the possibility of a return as we move toward the ambiguous concept of “retirement.”  We want to be closer to family, to grandchildren, and yet, we’ve spent the past 25 years building careers and making new friends in California.  Like those many years ago, our feelings are conflicted.  I long to be in Toronto, while my husband much prefers the warmer climate of Southern California.

“You can’t go home again,” Tom Wolfe once said, but all those years ago, my longing for what I called “home” was so great, his words were just words, ones that surely didn’t apply to me.  We made our decision, packed up our belongings and left for the California we’d known as youth.  It wasn’t an easy return.  The California of memory was far different from the California we encountered, and I have never rediscovered that sense of belonging or home I’d once taken for granted.  I had to admit that Tom Wolfe may have been right.

I came to Toronto at the beginning of the month, a trip my husband and I agreed was the necessary prelude to our decision-making process.  Of course, Toronto is not the city we left so many years ago, but I’ve delighted in walking through neighborhoods that are still familiar, visit old friends and recall shared memories, and discover that my heart still resides here, despite the years I’ve been away from it.

Yet, the days are sometimes a roller coaster ride of emotion:  joy of having time with my daughter and granddaughter, the ease of being with old friends, the long walks around the city, then the shock of Toronto’s the housing market or trying to consider living in, nearby communities which are more affordable than Toronto’s.  I return to my rental apartment each night feeling the decision-making has only become more muddied and complicated than I thought possible, and I sink into bed exhausted and more than a little overwhelmed by all we have to consider.

In the poem, “Decision,” by Jane Hirshfield, we find the theme of choices—and change.

There is a moment before a shape
hardens, a color sets.
Before the fixative or heat of kiln.
The letter might still be taken
from the mailbox…

She describes the moment of choice:

Yet something slips through it—
looks around,
sets out in a new direction, for other lands.

…Simply changed.
As a sandy track-rut changes when called a Silk Road:
it cannot be after turned from.

(From:  Poetry, May 2008, p.110)

Ah, those forks in the road, and the choices we must make, weighing one possibility against the other.  Our hearts wage war with our minds, our dreams with reality.  Ultimately, we have to decide on one course of action over another. To do nothing means stagnation.   Whatever our decision, we live out our choices, our lives changed by what we have chosen.

I’ll return to California at the end of the week.  My mind will be as heavy as my suitcase, weighted down with choices to be made.  I’ll say this: life doesn’t get any easier as we age.  There are always are choices, this thing or that, this way or the other, yet I trust that the road to be chosen will become clearer in time.

A day or so after I arrived in Toronto, a friend forwarded a poem to several of her friends, I among them.  Maybe some greater force guided the poem to my inbox just as I began my information gathering, because it resonated so deeply with me; I’ve kept a copy, reading the final two stanzas over and over since.

May my mind come alive today
to the invisible geography
that invites me to new frontiers,
to break the dead shell of yesterdays,
to risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
to live the life that I would love,
to postpone my dream no longer
but do at last what I came here for
and waste my heart on fear no more.

(by John O’Donohue, “A Morning Offering,” in:  To Bless the Space Between UsA  Book of Blessings, 2008)

Life poses many decision points, requires us to make choices, big and small, many times in our lives.  When have you come to a fork in the road, faced difficult choices and had to choose between them?   Were you afraid?  Why?  Did your head or your heart guide you?  Write about it, describing the event, what helped you choose, and how that decision has changed or affected your life.

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apologies to my subscribers for today’s glitch

To those of you who received two previous posts from “writingthroughcancer.com” this morning, I do apologize.  I’m on the road this month, and this morning, in an attempt to clean up the spam and trash on my site, I inadvertently deleted over a month of prompts between March and this past Sunday.  Whoops!

Thanks for your patience…  My next post will arrive on Sunday, as usual.

 

Sharon

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For May 11, 2014: Remembering Mothers

My daughter Claire sent me a link to a You Tube video this morning, a fake interview for “the toughest job in the world.”  The interviewer named the position as “Director of Operations,” and little by little revealed the requirements, each more onerous than the one before it.  Interviewees reacted with disbelief, surprise and “no way,” until the spoof concluded with the revelation that the position was actually “mother.”  The surprise and disbelief melted away into teary-eyed words of gratitude from the interviewees for their mothers!

As fun as the video clip is to watch, it drives home the enormous responsibility that comes with motherhood, all the daily tasks that are done in support of a child’s well-being and development.  I remember some of the yeoman’s work that was undertaken each day, the sleepless nights, the inability to do much more than collapse on the sofa once my daughters were put to bed, aware that there were still dishes to wash, laundry to be done, and somehow managing, despite the fatigue, to rise from the couch and finish the tasks.

Those memories have been re-ignited not just by watching the video clip, but by having spent the past ten days in the company of my daughter, Elinor, and her two and a half year old daughter.  The day begins early and from the moment Flora awakens, it’s nonstop activity until after she’s put to bed each night.  With two pre-school children, her sister Claire runs an even more frenetic schedule.  They know, full well now, what motherhood entails.  Now we all exchange “happy mother’s Day” greetings—they, in recognition of my contribution to their lives, and me, in appreciation of the mothers they have become.

It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday, and while you may be remembering or celebrating your mother offers many writing possibilities.

This week, step back from Hallmark’s flowery sentiments and remember your mother (or anyone who was like a mother to you) and the role she has played in your life.   What qualities or anecdotes best describe your mother?  How can you bring your mother’s character to life on the page?  What are some of your most important memories of your mother?

Of course, motherhood—the way we see and feel about our mothers—is complex.  Remember the poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens? In each stanza, the reader is offered something like a snapshot, all different but always, the word, “blackbird,” appearing in each.
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime…

One writing suggestion is to try imitating Stevens’ structure and write thirteen ways of looking at a mother (or motherhood) and see what happens.

Of course, mothers also give us advice, lots of it; some that we appreciate; some we don’t want to hear.  In a delightful essay entitled, “Advice from My Grandmother,” Alice Hoffman creates an unmistakable portrait of her grandmother, Lillie Lutkin, by offering the reader all the advice given to her by her:

Cook badly.  Even if you’re already a bad cook, make it worse.  Trust me, it’s easy.  Throw in anything you want.  Too much salt, too much pepper.  Feed him and see what he says.  A complaint means he’s thinking about himself, and always will.  A compliment means he’ll never make a living.  But a man who says, “Let’s go to a restaurant,” now he’s a real man.  Order expensive and see what he’s got to say then.

(In Family:  American Writers Remember Their Own, 1996).

We learn from our mothers lessons of love and life, many of them not appreciated until we’re much older.  What a mother teaches us can become material for a character portrait as Julia Kasdorf creates in the poem, “What I Learned from my Mother.”

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point…

(From: Sleeping Preacher, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)

Today and this week, write about mothers, yours, your mother’s or anyone who has played the role of mother in your life.  Write from whatever idea or memory comes to mind.  Remember your mother in as many different ways as you can.

And to those of you who are mothers like I am, I wish you a very happy Mother’s Day.

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What you do with time

is what a grandmother clock

does with it: strike twelve

and take its time doing it.

You’re the clock: time passes,

you remain. And wait.

(From:  “Mother,” by Kurt Brown)

I’ve spent a lot of time waiting over the past few days.  It began at six a.m. on Thursday morning, as I arrived at the San Diego airport to check in for my flight to Toronto.  I waited in line for a boarding pass and to check my bag.  I waited in line at the TSA security checkpoint.  I waited in line to board the flight, and we all waited, an hour and forty minutes past our departure time, the result of the high winds that were pummeling Southern California.  Hours later, arriving in Toronto, I waited in the long line of disembarking passengers to pass through customs.  And by the time I finally claimed my bags and climbed into my son-in-law’s car an hour later than expected, we ran into the dinnertime traffic, extending our normal 25 minutes door to door to about an hour. My day, it seemed, had been defined by little more than waiting.

In truth, it’s not something I do well.  Whether it’s a line at airport security, a doctor’s appointment, a tardy dinner guest, or finding myself still waiting, as I did in her adolescent years, for my daughter, whose perpetually last-minute style is even more pronounced as she juggles her preparation with that of her two-year old daughter’s.  Despite helping out as much as I can, I seem to end up—you guessed it—sitting near the door and waiting to go somewhere we’ve planned.

In Worcester, Massachusetts,

I went with Aunt Consuelo

to keep her dentist’s appointment

and sat and waited for her

in the dentist’s waiting room.

(From “In the Waiting Room,” by Elizabeth Bishop)

Have you sometimes found yourself waiting for someone or something to happen?  No doubt you have, because we’ve done some form of waiting for most of our lives.   We’ve waited for a special event, for people, for letters to arrive, or our planes to depart.  We’ve checked our watches when a guest hasn’t arrived at the appointed hour for a lunch or dinner and wondered if we got the date wrong.  We wait in lines for tickets, for security checks, for advertised specials, or the hot new film that everyone is talking about.  We’ve waited and paced the floor when a teenage child doesn’t arrive home at curfew.  We’ve impatiently thumbed through outdated magazines in the doctor’s office  as the hands on the clock move well past our scheduled appointment time.  And it’s likely that you have waited, as so many of us have, trying not to worry, to hear the results of the battery of medical tests administered to you or a loved one.  In short, we’ve all done a lot of waiting.

We’ve all waited with hope; and we’ve waited with dread.  But sometimes, it’s the waiting that overtakes us, and we’re unable to concentrate on anything but the waiting for someone on something to happen.

Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting

And the letter you wait for won’t come,

And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray

And the letter I wait for won’t come.

(From “Caboose Thoughts,” by Carl Sandburg)

We know better, of course.  It does no good to pace the hallway or sit at the table, foot tapping restlessly, willing something or someone to speed up.  Time—and events—move as they will.  If we allow impatience to be the master, then how much of life have we failed to notice?

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

(From “The Four Quartets,” by T.S. Eliot)

The faith and the love and the hope are … in the waiting.  These words make me reconsider why life makes us wait.  I am still learning, even after all these years, to accept what I cannot control, to let things unfold as they will, even if it’s as simple as waiting for my daughter finally come into the room and say, “I’m ready to go now.” and almost always, we manage to arrive wherever it is we’ve planned to go without too much delay.

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

(From:  “You Reading This, Be Ready,” by William Stafford)

What do you wait for?   Do you remember a particular time when your life seemed to be consumed by waiting?  Were you waiting with hope, dread or impatience?  Why?  When has waiting kept you from noticing, from appreciating those small moments of beauty that Stafford describes?  Write about waiting.

 

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