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For the Week of November 1, 2014: Turning Back the Hands of Time

Posted in writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 2, 2014 | 2 Comments »

I awakened with the light this morning, at first, thinking I’d overslept, but then remembering the time change.  For weeks, I’ve been waking and dressing in darkness before taking our terrier, Maggie, out for her morning walk.  But this morning was already light as we went outside.  Maggie trotted happily along, stopping to pick up seeds and stones to toss and chase as I smiled as we welcomed the sunrise.  Around us, the houses were quiet as neighbors slept, happy for an extra hour this Sunday morning as clocks everywhere were turned back an hour.

Cher’s voice, belting out the lyrics “If I could turn back time,” played in my mind as we began walking.  It made me wonder, as I do each autumn, how it might be to have a “do-over,” to really turn back time and live events in my life differently…like taking the other road at the fork Robert Frost wrote about, a different set of choices than the ones I made so long ago.  Maggie romped and I followed, indulging my daydreams, the “what ifs” of my life.  What if…I’d chosen a different university that the one I did, or if my first husband and I had taken the offer in Colorado instead of the one in Canada…  Or if I’d stayed in Halifax for graduate school instead of going to Toronto, or if my present husband and I hadn’t decided to return to California …or if…

I’m not alone in those lazy daydreams, wondering what life would have been like if I’d chosen or acted differently.  Ben Franklin may have been responsible for introducing daylight saving time, but novelists, filmmakers, singers, science fiction writers, and poets have long been intrigued with the idea of turning back time. Think of H.G. Wells’ 1895 novella, The Time Machine, adapted for film, radio and television many times since its publication, Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, or Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.  Fox’s character traveled to the past in an attempt to influence the outcomes of life in the future.  Murray’s arrogant, self-absorbed news reporter was doomed to repeat the same day over and over until he learned to care about others’ lives.  Ken Grimwood’s protagonist in his novel, Replay dies of a heart attack in 1988 and awakens as an eighteen year old in 1963 with a chance to relive his life, although his memories of the next twenty-five years remain intact.  He replays his life and death, each time awakening in 1963 before he realizes he can’t prevent his death, but he can change the events for himself and others before it happens.

When Neil Sedaka wrote and recorded his signature tune, “Turning Back the Hands of Time,” in 1962, it quickly became a hit, the lyrics capturing the longing many of us experience as we look back over our lives.

Turning back the hands of time

To see the house I lived in,

To see the streets I walked on…

 

To touch the face of friends and loved ones,

To hear the laughter and to feel the tears,

What a miracle this would be,

If only we can turn the hands of time…

If only we could turn back the hands of time…Let’s face it, we all daydream about it from time to time, but when we open our eyes, we’re still faced with the life we have now.  How many times have you begun a sentence with the words, “if only I had…” and wished you did something differently, could rediscover that “simpler time,” a place you loved, see old friends, a deceased parent or grandparent, or have a chance to choose differently that you did, return to a time before illness or loss dominated your daily life …if only you could turn back time.

Next time I won’t waste my heart
on anger; I won’t care about
being right. I’ll be willing to be
wrong about everything and to
concentrate on giving myself away.

Next time, I’ll rush up to people I love,
look into their eyes, and kiss them, quick…

and I will keep in touch with friends,
writing long letters when I wake from
a dream where they appear on the
Orient Express. “Meet me in Istanbul,”
I’ll say, and they will.

(“Next Time” by Joyce Sutphen, from After Words. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2013.)

Imagine, this week, that you were given free rein to that longing, write about what you would do if you could turn back time?  What events in your life would you replay?  What might you do differently, knowing what you know now?  Write about it—without constraint or apology, beginning with the line “If I could turn back the hands of time…” and let it take you into that memory or longing.  Once finished, read what you’ve written and then write again—but this time, with an eye to discovering the gratitude for the life you have.

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For the Week of July 27, 2014: A Place of My Own

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , pets and health, , , on July 27, 2014 | 2 Comments »

“Goethe once wrote that all writers are homesick, that all writers are really searching for home.  Being a writer is being on a constant search for where you belong.”— Mary Morris, “Looking for Home”

I’ve stubbornly refused to call San Diego “home” since relocating here in 2006.  Never one for crowded beaches, deserts and arid land, my heart finds no affinity with the landscape.  It’s little wonder, I suppose.  I was raised in rural northern California, a place where residents resented Southern California’s drain of our natural resources and periodically sought to secede and be the State of Jefferson.

I grew up among Jack pine and Douglas fir trees, in a small valley surrounded by mountains, part of the Cascade Range, and where summers were spent swimming in cold mountain lakes and rivers.  Yet I admit that as I waited in the Oakland airport to board a flight to San Diego on Friday evening, I was eager to get “home” to San Diego.  After a week of teaching in Berkeley, I was ready to sleep in my bed, sit in my easy chair, and resume the routines that mark my days:  walks with my dog, coffee on the deck while the birds cavort at the fountain and chatter in the treetops, writing in the quiet of early morning.

“I am here alone for the first time in weeks,” May Sarton wrote at the beginning of A Journal of Solitude, “to take up my ‘real’ life again at last.”  I suppose that’s how I felt in my return.  Whatever city we live in at the moment is less important that the space we shape for ourselves, one that offers that “room of one’s own,” whether a corner of the kitchen or a bedroom turned into office.  Remember Virginia Woolf’s, A Room of One’s Own?  Written at a time when women were not allowed into particular universities nor recognized in a literary world dominated by men.  Woolf famously said, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

There are many analyses of the book, and while I am not a fiction writer, what I took from reading Woolf so many years ago was simply the necessity of making a place for my creative work.  Without one free of interruption or distractions, my creative work is compromised.  I love my teaching, but it consumes my energy, and when I turn to my writing, I am often spent.  Add to that the intensity of the week-long class, “Writing as a Healing Ministry,” one I’ve taught for over ten years and requires I travel to Berkeley each July and reside in faculty housing for the week.  At the end of the week,  I am all the more in need of reclaiming my routine, the mental and emotional space I need to nurture my creative life.

In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.—Virgina Woolf

In her delightful book of writing invitations, Room to Write, Bonni Goldberg explains the choice of her book title as “creating room for your writing…  Making room in your life to write,” She adds, “generates even more room for your writing.”  Creativity doesn’t just happen.  Our muses don’t just come whenever we beckon.  We have to create and protect the space needed to nurture creativity.  Only then will the artist within each of us be fully revealed.

This morning, my dog Maggie and I were once again up at 5:45 a.m. to walk.  She knows my routine by heart and seems to find nearly as much satisfaction in the certainty of that walk, as I do, even our time sitting on the deck, and as I prepare to write, in taking her place on a cushion near my feet.  We’re  at home again, stepping  into the comfort of routine and the place we call our own.  This morning, even the birds seemed to welcome us back.  Hummingbirds frolicked nearby at the fountain; a woodpecker set to work on the century plants below our deck, and a red tail hawk glided over our heads to fly across the canyon.  I sighed and smiled.  It was good to be here.  It was good to be back in place, in the place that is my own.

Think about what it’s like to return to your place after a busy day or time away, the “room of your own” that lets you bask in quiet and solitude, even briefly.  What is it like to have that place where you can be alone, and, as May Sarton described, take up your real life again?”

 

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For the Week of June 22, 2014: Summer!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 22, 2014 | 2 Comments »

SumerIsIcumenIn-line

Summer is i-cumin in—

   Lhude sing, cuccu!

 

I found myself humming the old medieval round, “Summer is i-cummin in” as I sat outside early this morning, watching the marine layer melt away as the sun burned through it, listening the chirp and chatter of birds that populate the trees in the canyon beneath our deck with my dog on my lap, my coffee in my hand.  It was a glorious summer’s morning, and I remembered the carefree spirit of the ancient tune.

The official arrival of summer, the summer solstice, occurred early yesterday morning, and while our newscasts were filled with the sobering and relentless news of crises in the mid-east, many other people in the world were celebrating the advent of summer.  For example, some celebrated by attending the annual festival at Stonehenge, one that dates back thousands of years, and still draws modern druids and many others who are there to witness summer ‘s first sunrise. In the Scandinavian countries, midsummer celebrations, roots also dating back to the pagan celebration of summer solstice, with festivities, dancing, and parades occurred in towns and villages across Scandinavia.

I do not remember any solstice celebration during my childhood.  As far as we were concerned, summer began on the last day of school—whatever the date.  We practically danced home from school, bags loaded with the remains of the year: used pencils and erasers, notebooks and a certificate declaring we’d move to the next grade in the fall.  We were filled with excitement and anticipation.  Summer meant two months of holiday, of long days and evenings when the sun lingered in the sky.  It meant running through the sprinklers on hot days, softball played until dusk on neighborhood streets, and after dinner drives to the local Fosters’ Freeze for soft ice cream.  Summer was picnics and watermelon.  It was Sundays spent swimming and boating on a nearby lake.  It was a time of abandonment and freedom.

Summer was synonymous with new adventures:  picking blackberries, catching butterflies and lizards, turning Manzanita bushes into fortresses, looking for buried treasure, or, with the gang of neighborhood children, creating summer theater, circus acts and parades for our parents.

Looking back, I am filled with longing for the freedom, the curiosity, and the sense of immortality that children possess, the utter joy in lying down in tall grasses to find faces or shapes in the clouds that dotted the blue sky above us.  We lived in the moment, and every summer’s day was rife with new possibility.

I think about those carefree days as summer begins, and how, in a climate that is dominated by sunshine, I know I will soon beg to escape to an air-conditioned room as the predictable heat waves arrive.  Summer, in these parts, is also synonymous with the danger of wildfires.  Couple that with the nightly news casts of drought or tornadoes, flooding and mudslides in other parts of the country, and summer loses some of the appeal I once remember.

It’s easy to forget what summer once held, what it promised when I was a child.  It’s much too easy, in adulthood, to become consumed by the demands of daily life,  far too easy to forget how precious life is, how glorious a sunny day can be, how much is changing in front of our eyes while we, heads down and eyes on our screens, barely notice.

“Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?” Mary Oliver asks in her poem, “The Summer Day.”   As I read her words, I think that perhaps I should lie down in tall grasses, eat a popsicle and feel the juice drip down my chin, or simply sit on the porch swing and sing the song I once knew by heart:  “Summer is a ‘coming in, loudly sing cu-cu!”  What about you?  What will you do this summer, as Oliver challenges, with your one wild and precious life?

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

(In:  The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays, Beacon Press, 2008).

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For June 15, 2014: Fathers and Those Who Become Them

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2014 | 4 Comments »

In our household, Father’s Day arrives just days after my birthday, and this year, the advent of my newest decade more than overshadowed any planning or celebration for my husband.  He’s stepfather to my daughters, and predictably, he “poo-poos” the event, saying, “it’s not important,” describing it as “just an excuse for commercialism,” but he “doth protest too much, methinks,” especially as I witness his complete delight as he opens a greeting card or hears a grandchild’s voice on the telephone recite the well-rehearsed “Happy Father’s Day Grandpa!”

In the article, “Father’s Day:  Even the cards are different,” which appeared in a 2008 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune, reporter Jenifer Godwin wrote:  Moms and dads are more equal parenting partners than ever before, with studies showing men do far more housework and spend more time with their children than previous generations.  Yet Father’s Day still doesn’t inspire the same need to bestow sentimental cards, gifts and dinners out as Mother’s Day.

Godwin cited a number of statistics to show the contrast between how we celebrate mothers and fathers, for example, more cards are sent to mothers on Mother’s Day and more money is spent on mothers’ gifts.  In fact, Father’s Day wasn’t even  an official holiday until 1972, over a half century after the official designation of Mother’s Day.  Add one more layer of complexity to this state of lesser remembrance, that of being a stepfather, and I suspect we’d find even greater disparity.

I guess it was the telephone call from one daughter early this morning, wishing J. a “Happy Father’s Day,” that got me reconsidering this post.  I always think of my father on this day, and I am just as certain my daughters pause to remember theirs, my first husband, whose life was cut short while the girls were still in elementary school.   But as I listened to J.’s laughter, his voice full of delight as he chatted with E. and our granddaughter, I began to think of the extraordinary influence he, as stepfather, has had both girls; how he so willingly embraced two teenagers into his life and weathered the “sturm und drang” of adolescence with as much commitment as any birth father.

We laugh together now about some of the stormier interactions, how one or the other daughter tested him at various times and fiercely reminded him that he was not “Dad” nor would he ever be.  Yet he responded with grace and the ability to dance that conflicted tango of step-fatherhood, of “I love you”—“don’t even think that I love you” that often defined those first years as a reconstituted family.  Little by little, the relationship between J. and the girls deepened and grew, and without any fanfare, their bond solidified.  “This is my father,” E. said as she introduced him to her high school French teacher three years later.  I stifled a gasp.  J. simply extended his hand to say hello, but I saw his eyes tear up for a moment.

J. has been instrumental in igniting one daughter’s interest and career in international community development.  When E. traveled to rural Thailand on her first work project, J. was working on a development project in Laos.  He made a 36 hour stop in Bangkok and took a twelve-hour bus trip to her village to share a meal together with her host family, before returning to Bangkok to fly on to Laos.  As our second daughter struggled with low self-esteem and fear of academia, he patiently accompanied her from community college to community college, until gradually, she had the courage to enroll.  He discussed readings and research with her as she steered her studies toward psychology and anthropology.  For the duration of her undergraduate years, C. never earned less than an “A” –even in the statistics courses she feared so much.  J. was coach and mentor, and I thrilled as I witnessed her blossoming and growing self-confidence.

This Father’s Day, I honor all fathers and their importance in our lives, but today,  I’ll be celebrating my husband with gratitude for  his patient and loving contribution to my daughters’ lives and my own.   He is friend, companion, mentor, and has become more father that anyone, including him, could have imagined.

He wasn’t hard on us kids,
never struck us…

He used to sing in the car
bought us root beers along the road.
He loved us with his deeds.

(From: “A Father’s Pain,” in A River Remains by Larry Smith)

Today I remember how deeply important fathers have been in my life and my daughters’, and whether fond or complicated, the memories of our fathers are full of stories.  Write one.  And to all the fathers—whether those who helped to birth us or those who were “like” fathers–who had a lasting and loving influence in our lives, Happy Father’s Day.

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For the Week of June 8, 2014: For the Love of Dogs

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , pets and health, , , , on June 8, 2014 | 5 Comments »

[C]ountering [Darwin’s] view comes a new view of dog history, more in keeping with our own ostentatiously less man-centered world view. Dogs, we are now told, by a sequence of scientific speculators … domesticated themselves. They chose us.  (“Dog Story,” by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, August 8, 2011)

She chose me.   She bears little resemblance to the canine companion I envisioned for myself, finally ready, after several months since our toy poodle’s death, to bring another dog into our house.  I enlisted the help of my neighbor, a former veterinary assistant and now, dog caretaker and spent hours each day for the past week or two, searching the pictures of homeless dogs posted by the many adoption sites in the San Diego area.  “Bigger than Kramer,” I said, eyeing the sites for Wheaten or West Highland terriers.  “Not neurotic,” I added, since Kramer, for all his lovability, was by far the most neurotic of all my dogs.  “Calm,” I said, wistfully remembering how Winston, the Westie who inhabited our lives until his death at 17, was content to lie at my feet while I wrote or plop on the footstool beside me in the evenings.   I filled out applications for four different animal rescue organizations and narrowed the search to three different dogs, a poodle-terrier mix, a miniature schnauzer (chosen for his cuteness factor), and a doe-eyed terrier mix of unknown origin.

“Why do you want another dog?”  My friend, S., posed the question as our Friday writing group was ending.  Why indeed?  Whatever answer I gave was disjointed and vague.  I did, that’s all.  I’ve always had a dog since we adopted Tico, a toy terrier mix, when I was just beginning high school.  He was more attached to my kid brother than anyone, and as small as he was, he  possessed a Napoleonic ego, taking on large German Shepards at regular intervals.  But Tico saved my brother’s life near the end of his own, awakening him when our family house caught fire, and minutes before his bedroom was engulfed in flame.

Bismarck, an adopted Irish setter, moved from California to Canada with me.  Many ears later, when we planned our return to California,  we found a home for Odie, part Bearded Collie and English Sheepdog, and months later, he was the featured dog in an article in a Canadian children’s magazine.  Winston, our adopted Westie, joined us two years later and became the companion for my muse, present during the intense weeks of writing on the Mendocino Coast as I worked on my first book and then the second.  Kramer, though beloved, was more my husband’s dog than mine, never content to sit still in my lap unless he could shower my face with dog kisses, and yet, when he died, my heart ached for weeks afterward.  Why did I want a dog?  Because I did…because I missed the companionship I feel with a dog.  It was as good of an answer as I could give my friend.

Cats or dogs, it hardly matters.  Our pets are good for us.  A recent post on the Web MD site states:  “… for nearly 25 years, research has shown that living with pets provides certain health benefits. Pets help lower blood pressure and lessen anxiety. They boost our immunity. They can even help you get dates.  Well, whether or not you’re looking for a way to meet a potential dating partner, pets do a lot for us besides helping us overcome shyness or isolation.

  • There’s evidence to suggest that exposure to a pet during infancy may reduce the risk of allergies.
  • The act of petting an animal can lower our blood pressure.
  • Dogs are de-stressors.”  Playing with a dog helps to relieve stress, increasing serotonin and dopamine, nerve transmitters with pleasurable and calming effects.
  • Heart attack patients who have pets survive longer than those without them.
  • Dog owners are to be more likely to exercise regularly, and among adolescents, having a dog can increase their level of activity.
  • Walking a dog or caring for a pet provides companionship and exercise for the elderly.  Even Alzheimer’s patients have fewer anxious outbursts if an animal is present.  Simply watching fish in an aquarium has helped to increase patients’ attentiveness.

But it wasn’t my health I was thinking about as I drove to a local Petco for the Saturday dog adoption.  I was meeting one of the dogs I’d applied for, that doe-eyed terrier mix.  You’ve guessed the rest by now.  Maggie (her new moniker) looks nothing like the dog I had imagined for myself.  She’s three, was abandoned with a litter of her puppies, and isn’t going to win any beauty contests.  Oh, her face is sweet, and those eyes?  Huge and captivating.  But she’s smaller than any dog I’ve ever had (except perhaps Tico).  Her fur defies grooming, and although I’m taking her to the dog groomer this week, I suspect V. will be as perplexed over what cut to give her as I am.  She’s  not well proportioned, the result of that “unknown” origin.  Small boned and petite, her mid-section resembles a dachshund’s.  And yet…and yet.  When I picked her up from the crate, she trembled violently until I held her in my arms.  Then she curled into my chest with her head resting on my shoulder, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  I didn’t have any say in the matter.  Like I said before, she chose me.

He puts his cheek against mine

and makes small expressive sounds…

 

he turns upside-down, his four paws

in the air

and his eyes dark and fervent.

 

“Tell me you love me,” he says…

(From:  “Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night,” in Dog Songs, Poems by Mary Oliver,2013)

Maggie is asleep at my feet as I write this blog post, already cementing our daily habits.  Me, at the computer.  She, content to lie nearby until I push the chair back and stand.  Then she’s on her feet in seconds, ever attentive, tag wagging, and eyes searching my face.  “So what’s next,” she seems to say.  I smile and think back to the New Yorker essay by Adam Gopnik. “How does anyone live without a dog?” He asks as he concludes the article, before he answers:  “I can’t imagine.”

Maggie

Maggie

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For the Week of June 1, 2014: Seasons in Life; Seasons in Cancer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

When the song, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” was recorded released in 1965 by the rock group, The Byrds, I was a college student caught up in the idealism and fervor of the sixties.  The lyrics were nearly verbatim from Ecclesiastes (3:1) of the King James Version of the Bible, but the song captured the sentiments of the time and quickly became number one on Billboard’s “Hot 100.”  The Byrds weren’t the first to record the song.  Earlier versions  by the Limelighters and Pete Seeger preceded the Byrd’s hit recording.  Over the next several years, many other artists recorded the song, including Judy Collins, Joe Cocker, The Seekers, Dolly Parton, and Nina Simone.  Is it any wonder?  The words from Ecclesiastes describe life’s journey, the inevitability of its cycles and seasons, the story of the entire lifespan.

Seasons have been on my mind a lot lately, triggered, in part, by witnessing the “coming out” of springtime in Toronto, realizing how much I miss the distinct change in seasons, and, later this month,  the passing of another decade in my life.  In the book, The Seasons of Life:  Our Dramatic Journey from Birth to Death, authors John Kotre and Elizabeth Hall describe how seasons are metaphors for life’s journey and how human life is intimately connected to the seasons of nature:  times of day, circling of the planets, phases of the moon, or growth and harvesting of the crops (University of Michigan Press, 1997).  In fact, the ancient Greeks used seasons to define life’s stages: childhood was spring; youth became summer; autumn described adulthood, and winter, the metaphor for old age.

The cyclical nature of life and living reflects what we witness in nature. I think of being in the autumn of my life now, described in a French Canadian film I saw many years ago as “the other side of spring.”  My life is still colorful, still vibrant, but I know the colors will gradually fade as I move toward winter, the years of elderhood and old age.

There are other aspects of life—and illness—that are described by seasons, including cancer.  In a 2009 article in Cure Today, Kenneth Miller, MD  described four distinct phases or “seasons” of cancer survivorship.

  1. Acute survivorship: when a person is diagnosed and treated.
  2. Transitional survivorship: when celebration is blended with worry and loss as a patient pulls away from the treatment team.
  3. Extended survivorship: includes those who are living with cancer as a chronic disease and individuals in remission because of ongoing treatment.
  4. Permanent survivorship: people who are in remission and asymptomatic, or,
    cancer-free but not free of cancer because of chronic late and long-term health or psychosocial problems. Others may even develop secondary cancers related to cancer treatment, or develop second cancers not related to the first cancer or its treatment.

Miller’s observations were informed not only by his patients’ experiences, but also by his wife’s.  He compared her stages of cancer and recovery to the seasons of nature:

I have learned just as much about cancer and the seasons of survivorship in my work as a medical oncologist as I have alongside my wife, Joan, he wrote, who was treated 10 years ago for acute leukemia and more recently for breast cancer. Her diagnosis was certainly like the cold, bleak winter, and transition like the rebirth of spring. And while each season was different than the others, each was beautiful in its own way. (http://www.curetoday.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/article.show/id/2/article_id/1142)

It turns out that seasons may be more than metaphors in the cancer journey.  In a 2007 study, researchers from Norway and Oregon found evidence suggesting that men diagnosed with prostate cancer in summer or autumn had better survival rates (see:http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/80625.php for more details).  Vitamin D—the sunshine vitamin–plays a part.  In other studies with early stage lung cancer patients,  high concentrations of Vitamin D appeared to contribute to a better survival rate post-surgery.  Patients whose surgeries occurred in sunny months (May – August) had a 30% higher survival rate than those who had surgery in winter. “Season,” epidemiologist David Christiani noted, “had a pretty strong effect.”

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Whether we’re diagnosed or treated with cancer in summer or winter, the seasons of our illness can dominate our lives.  Marilyn Hacker’s 1994 collection of poetry, Winter Numbers, invokes the darkness and cold of winter as she details the loss of many of her friends to AIDS or cancer as she struggled with breast cancer.  Dan Matthews, using seasons as metaphor, chronicled the journey of his wife’s terminal breast cancer in a poetry collection,  Rain, Heavy at Times: Life in the Cancer Months (Arago Publishing, 2007).  John Sokol wrote about his cancer in a poetry collection entitled In the Summer of Cancer.  And in one of my favorite poems by Barbara Crocker, “For a Friend Lying in Intensive Care Waiting For Her White Blood Cells to Rejuvenate After a Bone Marrow Transplant,” the season of springtime signals a time renewal and rejuvenation:

The jonquils. They come back. They split the earth with

their green swords, bearing cups of light. ‘

The forsythia comes back, spraying its thin whips with

blossom, one loud yellow shout.

The robins. They come back. They pull the sun on the

silver thread of their song.

The iris come back. They dance in the soft air in silken

gowns of midnight blue.

The lilacs come back. They trail their perfume like a scarf

of violet chiffon.

And the leaves come back, on every tree and bush, millions

and millions of small green hands applauding your return.

(From:  The Cancer Poetry Project, 2007, www.cancerpoetryproject.com)

This week, think about how seasonal metaphors describe your life.  Write about the seasons of your life, whether the cancer journey, a marriage, loss and grief, adulthood– any of life’s seasons that have been important or significant to you in some way.

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For the Week of February 9, 2014: Gifts of the Heart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , poetry and healing, , on February 9, 2014 | 3 Comments »

Cupid, draw back your bow
And let your arrow go
Straight to my lover’s heart for me, for me
Cupid, please hear my cry
And let your arrow fly
Straight to my lover’s heart for me

(from the 1961 hit, “Cupid,” by Sam Cooke)

It’s that time of year again.  Walk into almost any retail store, and you’ll be surrounded by red and white decorations, images of Cupid and a multitude of hearts.  Glossy advertisements abound, featuring an array of gifts far more expensive than the traditional heart-shaped box of chocolates my father used to give my mother each February 14th.  And valentine cards, from the sentimental to the comic, are everywhere, obliterating the memory of those prized cellophane packages of 36 valentines we were eager to exchange with our classmates or the construction paper and doily creations, painstakingly cut and pasted, that we carried home to our parents on Valentine’s Day.

I cringe now, at the commercialism that overtakes nearly every holiday. Valentine’s Day is no exception.  And yet, there I was, last week, standing in front of the card racks, trying to find the right valentine for each of my three grandchildren and my husband.  I succumbed to the children’s cards embedded with musical tunes, knowing the fun they have when they open them, but for my husband?  I couldn’t find anything that communicated the sentiments I wanted to convey.  I ended up with a packet of red lace doilies and the intent to create my own valentine for him, something I haven’t done for years, at least on Valentine’s Day.

The truth is that I write little poems for my husband all year round.  In fact, I bought a small red metal replica of a mailbox, one that opens with just enough room for a half sheet of paper, folded in quarters.  Once a month, perhaps more often, I write a poem and place it in the mailbox.  I close it and attach a small flag with the words,“poem inside,” that I made with a toothpick and small triangle of paper.  I guess you could say I send my husband valentines year-round, which is probably the reason I couldn’t find much to inspire me among all the retail cards displayed in the shops.

Expressions of sentiment, whether captured in small verses, letters, postcards, or even the handmade paper and doilies version of youth, don’t need a designated calendar holiday to be given to someone we care about.  These are small gifts, year-round valentines that say, “I appreciate you,” “I’m thinking of you,” or “I love you.”

I think of Ted Kooser’s little book of poems, Valentines.  In 1986,  inspired by a friend who sent handmade valentines out each year, Kooser began sending out a postcard bearing a red heart in the corner and a short poem written on the card to women around the country who had signed his mailing list.  The project lasted 20 years, until his mailing list became too large, and thus, too expensive, for him to continue, but his efforts resulted in a delightful book of those valentines published in 2008 by the University of Nebraska.

This past week, we’ve received several cards, notes from friends, written by hand and sent to pay tribute to the pet we had to bury.  They may have been expressions of sympathy, but they are, in a real sense, valentines–words that conveyed affection for us and for our little dog. Those cards sit on my desk, and I re-read them often.  It’s a small gesture, these handwritten notes, but in a world that is much too given to the shorthand of text messages or emails, taking the time to express affection, gratitude, or simply friendship in this way seems all the more important. Valentine’s Day is a good excuse to get started, but here’s the thing:  you can do it anytime.  You don’t have to wait for a special holiday or event.  You don’t have to be a poet.  The simple act of pausing to remember those we care about and those who have cared for us in times of struggle, hardship or illness, reminds us of what matters most in our lives:  people, friendship, love.  These are truly the gifts of the heart.  Why not write your own valentine for someone you love?

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

(From “i carry your heart (I carry it in)” by e.e. cummings, The Complete Poems, 1904-1962)

 

To each of you who read these posts, I wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day.

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