Leonard Cohen: ANTHEM

I found myself singing this to myself this morning...one of Leonard's greatest songs and a beautiful way to follow my last two posts. 

ANTHEM

The birds they sang

at the break of day

start again

I heard them say

don't dwell on what

has passed away

or what is yeat to be.

Ah the wars they will

be fought again

the holy dove

she will be caught again

bought and sold and bought again

the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

that's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs

the signs were sent;

the birth betrayed

the marriage spent

yeah the widowhood

of every government--signs for all to see.

I can't run no more

with that lawless crowd

while the killers in high places

say their prayers out loud.

But they've summoned, they've summoned up

a thundercloud 

and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring...

You can add up the parts 

but you won't have the sum

you can strike up the march,

there is no drum

Every heart, every heart

to love will come

but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

tha's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

That's how the light gets in.

One View of Julie

This is a poem I am working on about my sister. 

She was a beautiful child

Irish colors of copper and green

a face you always remembered as dimpled

though it wasn't 

an upturned nose

delicate

We loved dolls, Julie and I

hers blonde, mine, dark,

Snow White, Rose Red,

She the beauty, me the brains

Then came the injections

blood sugar tests

syringes in the bathroom

clearing of sweet things from the cupboards.

A shift happened.

Dad, the doctor; Mom, the nurse.

the glazed-over eyes and slurred words

sweating, shaking, 

foretold trouble

we quickly got orange juice or candy

and watched her slowly return

like an image coming back into focus

and then the relief that it was over

but she was disobedient

and it would come again

and she pulled out her hair

growing back in a little crown

my mother's mouth a thin, straight line

as she cut long strokes with scissors

trying to make it right

but it wasn't

i don't remember 

her looks got her boys

her mouth, attention

Irreverent, funny, drunk

Julie didn't give a rat's ass, it seemed.

A trail behind her of jobs

told us to keep our advice

told us to fuck off

she had married boyfriends she met at church

she had medical bills 

because the diabetes was taking its toll

and she had to run faster.

This disease makes your little veins burst

and your feet go numb

and your eyes go to hell

and your bones get brittle

and your nerves don't tell you when you broke your ankle

until your eyes insist that the angle is wrong

lying there on the kitchen floor.

Your body races toward old age.

She had a heart attack.

Near the end, Thanksgiving

She traveled here with Dad,

He the doctor, she the patient,

On the ride up, already, Julie zones out

(stubbornly refuses breakfast once again)

He hauls her into the restaurant

the waiter calls 911

"it's ok, I am a doctor, give me some orange juice"

My old dad dealing for the millionth time with Julie

It happens again at midnight

I hear her screaminG: 

DADDY, DADDY

in an unholy voice

a cat howl

a ghost howl

so loud

my feet lead me to her

she is drenched in sweat

Dad looks weary in his pajamas

we wait for the orange juice to work

In my terror I yell at her with all the love

         i can muster

and I hold her and rock her

I hear her voice in my shirt:

"I don't want to die"

Nothing we could think of could stop these things from happening.

Three months later

My dad knew she was gone before he got there.

Only the cats greeted him, skittish, hiding.

I got the call.

I remember, I remember 

Her old boyfriend was in the doorway

at the funeral

people from church

all of us sickened, sickened

cleaning out her apartment

excavating the layers

witness to the life and the aftermath:

evidence of

hastily shoved furniture to fit the gurney

sheets dragged off the bed

medical supplies

dishes in the sink

surprising, sweet touches

an unfinished needlepoint:

"A Sister is a Friend Given to You by God."

cracks

It was one of those friendships that happens fast.  I met her through another friend and there was something about her that intrigued me, that I found sort of exotic and quirky.  She agreed with me that we had some things in common and what followed were get togethers for food--she always brings food to people, wherever she goes, a charming and sometimes maddening habit, since she can't afford it--and increasingly, serious talks about some issues with her new husband, with the old husband, with the three children with the old husband.  

Cracks began to appear in the relationship after a few months, and I am pulling back a little. It is more a matter of staying with myself than with staying away from her.  If relationships are the stuff of life, then navigating through them is the task that requires the greatest skill and has the greatest potential for pain--receiving it, and causing it in others.  

I love to read Buddhist stuff because the message is-believe nothing, understand that things are not good or bad, they just are.  There is a story about a young man who becomes crippled, in a wheelchair. Then, the general comes riding up to the farm, looking for soldiers, and they leave him behind, and he can stay with his family. So, being crippled is bad, and it is good. It all depends.

I feel that way about cracks. They are an indication of growth and change, of softening, of movement.  A crack in a pot is not so good. A crack in the ice could mean that spring is coming. Cracks are what happen when trees grow, and from the cracks we get the beautiful texture of bark.  Cracks in the sidewalk create opportunities for small plants to grow where they otherwise wouldn't.  Cracks in our armor and defensiveness create the possibility of movement toward each other.  Cracking up can mean we're enjoying a good joke or losing our marbles.

I felt some cracking in the veneer of my art work this week-breaking through some walls that I thought defined the edges.  This, of course, is the great enemy of creativity: thinking that you know the size of the room you are in, when in reality, there is no room.  

february thaw

What a glorious gift this weekend has been-the oppression of the cold air and the ice underfoot has lifted, long enough to venture out sure-footed for a walk with Bella, camera in hand and joy in my heart.  Bird sounds. The smell of dirt and old leaves, recklessly unearthed by snow plow blades.  The glorious sun in the blue sky, shining through the trees and landing on the snow, sometimes casting a satin sheen, and in other, slicker areas, an icy glow.   For Bella, a cornucopia of smells and puddles to drink from. Today, the windows are open and the curtains pushed back. This is one time when being reminded of impermanence has been a cause for celebration!

Yesterday, I began a new adventure with some other women who are also interested in creativity and the spiritual life.  Organized by my friend Kim, a writing teacher, author, and passionately humanitarian friend, there were five of us brought together in her warm and peaceful home. I was a little nervous as I looked around the room, even though I knew all but one of the participants. Sherry, my old friend and fellow art teacher, is one of the more giving and thoughtful people I know. Jeanine, another Hope professor with maintains an air of the urban life she and Andrew left behind when they moved here long ago, and a sparkle undiminshed by MS.  And Jennifer, who I had met a few minutes before making tea in the kitchen while we loaded our plates with hummus and veggies. She writes music and children's books and has a soft, reflective air about her that I was drawn to right away.

Kim led us in readings from diverse spiritual traditions with common themes. The point of this curriculum, she told us, is to bring us together; it is being taught worldwide, among the learned and the unschooled, everywhere. The exploration of the arts follows the study-we wrote in our new journals about what the "composted" thoughts from our discussions yeilded in our hearts and minds. I look forward to our next meeting, which I will host. I spent hours this morning making art from my journal notes. Like the thaw outside, my creativity is warming and moving, flowing forth. It feels good.

Austin Christmas

In a few days, Annie and I will fly out of Chicago to Austin for a Texas Christmas. It will be my fourth trip to Austin and my third stay at the Austin Motel, one of the finer and more eccentric and soulful  establishments of that city.  I am sharing a few pictures from last year for you to get the general idea of the place,

but if you would like to know more, go to www.austinmotel.com , where you can read the history of the place and understand the reason for the fabulous karma of the place. 

The first time I stayed there was with my then-fiance Dave, who agreed to book the room in deference to me and my love of all things tacky and unique; I am sure that a sensible Best Western would have been far more up his alley, but he put a smile on his face and commented on how the purple walls of our room were really quite pretty, after all, and watched a football game on the tiny little tv with rabbit ears.

Last year I returned solo. Each room at the Austin is an individual work of art, and when I checked in to my new digs I was not disappointed. It had sort of a "c" shaped floor plan with the bathroom in the middle. One end of the C showcased a great old dresser, the kind my grandmother had, and the other end held a double bed under a window.  The head of the bed was about 2" lower than the foot, which gave you the feeling of diving into dreamland.  In the mornings, the sun streamed in that little window and I still remember how that looked and felt with perfect clarity.  There was also a little couch and another tiny tv that didn't work. The bathroom was brightly tiled and the layers of calking around the fixtures were like little necklaces that just spiffed everything up. In short, perfection.

Austin is an outdoor place full of independent, liberal and eccentric folks. There is art everywhere, both the official and the unofficial kind, and street merchants peddling everything from shea butter ( a gorgeous black man with dreds down to his ass) to mocassins.  The food is great and they have three theaters where you can order some of it and watch a movie.  We hope to see Clint's new movie on Christmas day.

My friend Tina will be here at the house with little Bella and the Ozman, stoking the home fires for me.  She is still waiting for her husband Almamy to get his visa approved and fly here to Holland to be with her. They have been separated far too long and the story of their struggle to get him here is a painful one.  I had dinner with my new friend Vic, a handsome, brilliant and smooth-talking caramel-colored man with a voice like Lou Rawls, and he told me that he looked up the word "steerage" in the dictionary after hearing it used in the movie, "Titanic".  I remember the scene: a shot of those belowdecks who couldn't afford first-class passage.  It refers to those cheap accomodations for people who really don't count quite as much in this world; those who are marginalized by their skin color, their poverty, their powerlessness, their gender.  An awareness of how this pervasive attitude drives our world will help to change it.  I don't want to get preachy, here, but seeing clearly is coming to unfold for me as so very much more than getting that I am a lucky woman.

peace to you all, and love,

claudia

we are saying thank you

I am thinking of that poem from Annie Lamott's book that is somewhere on this blog and thinking how appropriate it is for this weekend (and every other day of the year if your goal is peace)...my weekend was so glorious that I feel gluttonous in more than the food department (although I certainly did well there, too...) Jon and Annie were here, arriving on Thanksgiving day and staying til just a little while ago. I said goodbye to them in the JPs parking lot with snow coming down all around us and us in our hats and scarves. It was picturesque and it snowed just in time for JOn to get a little taste before heading back to Austin.  Tina and Kathy were here for TG dinner, and Mark and Benny came the next night for more food and some Monopoly (Benny won and I can tell you two things about that: first, he is a little capitalist, and second, we let him win, I swear).  Nothing like an 8 year old counting 100 dollar bills to crack you up. 

Saturday we spent in Ann ARbor with Seyth and Molly doing still more eating--Northside Grill for breakfast and my beloved SEVA for dinner. Annie got to see her painter friend, the other Seth (without the "y") and he inspired her to crank out some paintings on the theme of Facebook.

My friend Tina continues to hit walls trying to get her Almamy into the country...the visa is still not a done deal despite their jumping through every hoop presented.  She is struggling through each day without her new husband who is still in Conkary, Guinea.

Almost the end of the semester for Hope and finals are looming. I have enjoyed both classes but must admit it will be nice to be back to one job.

My friend Barb lost her dad, Vern Washabaugh, last Tuesday. She and her mom were right there for him around the clock and were giving him a bath and a shave when he left them.

Julie is driving back to DC with her fabulous basset hound, Bessie in tow--her first sojourn to the big city.  In other dog news, my friend Carolyn is missing her Lilly, her little black dog who she has had for years. She just seemed to disappear. There are signs up all over her neighborhood in Carmel, Indiana.  Mark brought Reggie for breakfast and we talked a little about how things will unfold when the time has come for him to go...loving dogs is so hard sometimes although of course worth every minute.

I have one quote and two pictures for you that may bring a little unity to this rambling blog. Really, I just felt like talking. 

Here is the quote: 

"Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.  It's the one and only thing you have to offer."--Barbara Kingsolver

The pics are of my Bella and Jon's Vanessa, Tarzan the cat and Poppy pup.

    

Halloween hike to the beach

Halloween hike to the beach

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pause...

good morning,

I found this image waiting for me in my inbox from Katie's parents, who I had the pleasure of talking to on conference night. Katie is a remarkable artist and one of many interesting small people I have the good fortune to be teacher to at Waukazoo Elementary.  I also think Katie is well on her way to being a great spiritual teacher!

A new issue of The Sun has me taking respite this morning in my chair with my small dog snoring on my lap, instead of heading for the gym.  I found this quote in an achingly beautiful essay called "Lost" by Elana Zamen:

The writer Andre Gide relates this experience fo a trip he took into the Belgian Congo:

    My party had been pushing ahead at a fast pace for  a number of days, an done morning when we were ready to set out, our native bearers, who carried the food and equipment, were found sitting about without any preparations made for starting the day.

Upon being questioned, they said, quite simply, that they had been traveling so fast in these last days that they had gotten ahead of their souls and were going to stay quietly in camp for the day in order for their souls to catch up with them.

So they came to a complete stop. 

I wonder how far removed I must be from these native bearers in my ability to feel my soul lagging behind me in my business, moving ahead with this sense of self-importance I so often feel.  How do we listen for those footsteps? How do we know when to stop and turn around?

7 secrets

I have been tagged by organicsyes....

here are the rules.

1. link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog

2. share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3.  Tag 7 people at the end of  your post by leaving their names as well as links on their blog.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

 

Remember chain letters? 

They were letters that we wrote and sent to a set number of people (was it seven? that seems right) and then each person sent to seven more, etc, etc, but also back to you, and the idea was that you were going to get a dollar or something from everyone and be rich. The other kind was that you had to do it or you were going to have to endure some awful fate if you didn't keep the chain going. (come to think of it, maybe I can attribute whatever bad luck I have ever had in my life to broken chain letters --or maybe broken mirrors. 

Anyway, 

here are my seven facts (I am only doing this because it is a chance to talk about myself)

1.  I am a teacher and doer and lover of all things art.

2. I have a fabulously diverse, interesting, irreverant and delightful group of friends.

3. I have a tiny little dog named Bella.

4. I lost an eye earlier this year.

5.  I love books about maritime disasters and great adventures.

6.  My first name is Frances.

7.  I was named after a little girl with a terminal illness that my doctor dad and nurse mom took care of before they got married. (I love that one.)