Spell

This year I have felt like I was under a spell—a spell of fatigue, grief, and anger.  Feeling this way has got me thinking about other kinds of spells, in the fairytale sense.  Young women unwittingly find danger, with poisoned apples, enchanted spinning needles, and devious witches disrupting their lives and punishing them for their daring hope.

Rapunzel lived in a tower until the age of twelve, when a prince came to rescue and marry her.  She could nearly taste her freedom, but she was found out and banished to live “in a place of misery and want,” while her intended was struck blind.

As a child, Snow White evoked the envy of the “godless” queen.  After numerous foiled attempts, the queen finally tricked Snow White into eating the poisoned apple, after which she fell dead while remaining flawless and cold in her glass coffin.

At birth, Princess Rosamond was cursed to prick her finger and sleep for a century.  Through she grew up lucky and adored, at fifteen she wandered through the castle and fell upon a sewing spindle, collapsing into a deep sleep that “fell upon the whole castle.” 

What lesson do we learn from these parables— that that the reward for youth and hope is trickery and suffering?  In 2013, girls don’t aren’t hurt by spinning needles or jealous witches, but what are anxiety, depression, grief, and abuse if not spells, bewitching forces that render us trapped, silent, and still.

After years of wandering, Rapunzel’s blinded husband found her.  Her tears healed him, and he saved her from a life of misery and suffering.

A prince barters with Snow White’s dwarves to take her coffin away on his carriage, and the ride jolts her, so that the apple dislodges and she awakes to his proposal.

Another prince finally makes it alive through the tangle of briars to kiss Princess Rosamond, breaking the spell and awaking her from her sleep.

But what if a man doesn’t break the spell?  What if the prince is there, and very kind, but the fog remains, stubbornly shading you from happiness and well-being?

It helps knowing who the enemy is.  It isn’t the patient man at your side, it isn’t the girl you miss like a second heartbeat, and it isn’t the people who want so much to help you.  It is something other, something outside yet deep within that you don’t own, but has been done to you.

One night I tried to wrap words around it. “I’m tired of feeling so angry.”  The fog thinned slightly lifted with a simple admission.  That night we went to a show, and the music jolted the apple slightly. 

Relief isn’t a grand moment of awakening, the spell breaking in one deft crack.  It takes a thousand tiny steps of honesty, song, tears, pages, hope, faith, running away, waking up, and coming back to save yourself.

Pieta

We expect so much from each spring,

ice shelves to tumble, arms to shed jackets,

waves to lead in familiar tides—

breath catches, such astonishing love.

Before words, all we have is the body,

world narrowing to a tiny stream,

waking and rest, open mouths and satiety,

easing them through the early quiet days.

This is all we should know—waves

bringing life towards us, small roots

deepening, arms unfurling, as our tide

recedes, brittle and simple as winter.

We cannot expect the unnatural cadence

of easing them through the last quiet days,

slipping the jacket from their arms

to draw around us, breathing the fabric,

or worse, it comes in a sudden surge of ice.

After words, all we have is the body,

familiar and lonely  like a hollow tree. 

Tide stills, frozen water, fathomless grief.

City Mouse, Country Mouse

The last couple months have yielded many opportunities for travel, both for work and for play, here and abroad, to cities and more rural locales.  I had the chance to catch up with wonderful friends and have some solitary time as well.

I started out with some "country" destinations.  First Iowa, where the sunny fields were absolutely beautiful and calming to walk amongst with my much-adored Kelsey.

Then onto Bainbridge Island for the Harvest Festival, which was an idyllic, wholesome event with cider pressing, sheep shearing, and what seemed like the entire island in attendance.

This whole summer, being outside was the only time I felt semi-normal and like I could breathe.  The next round of trips though, were to cities-- familiar and new.

First came Boston,  (well I only spent a few hours in Boston proper, for the rest I was in the much less glamorous Woburn, MA)

Then onto Torino which quickly rose the ranks into my favorite cities.   It felt so good to slip into the anonymous rhythm of a new place and walk and walk listening to music.  

I loved everything about it; the ring of cafes around the main square, the quiet streets lined by soot-covered apartment buildings, and the beautiful silent river. 

On the way back home from Italy I stopped in Eindhoven and Amsterdam (and crossed paths with my Manny).

It's funny how much both cities are starting to feel comfortable and familiar.  

Maybe it's not being in nature I love, but rather beautiful surroundings and some time and space to reflect and allow feelings to start coming through.  I would say "there's no place like home," but that's only a piece of it.  There's nothing like seeing your home with fresh eyes and a fresh heart, knowing the world is very small, very lovely, very bittersweet. 

Ordinary Days

What more can we dream

than days of little substance,

sudden laughter and burnt rice, 

the comfort of familiar hands.

What more can be gained 

than life's small irritations,

the last, best day of stillness, 

cool bodies under cotton sheets

Dreaming, perhaps, of what will soon 

be lost.  And it goes so quickly-- 

a glass falling from soapy hands, 

yarn unraveling across the floor.

What more can we do, then, 

but fall headfirst into night,

finding our way from numbness 

to somewhere darker, where air 

separates from lungs and 

sound separates from grief.

Did laughter ever come freely,

will we we wake from this dream.

What more can we bear 

than these new ordinary days, 

split seams rejoined but not intact, 

fear yielding ever deeper love.

My heart sings in recognition 

of all that surrounds me.

PAM- July 2012

I've been a member of the Portland Art Museum for years, and I try to catch every exhibit that comes through.  If you haven't visited before, the PAM does a fabulous job selecting themes or artists for their shows, and they integrate a lot of social, cultural, and historical background to add context to the experience.

The headlining exhibit recently was California Impressionism, which I didn't realize was a genre, but the state's landscape is a fitting application for Impressionism's focus on light, space, and motion.  California is such a special place to me, with memories of early childhood in the Bay Area, time on my grandparent's ranch, and visits with my beloved Alice, so the collection evoked a lot of nostalgia, particularly the pieces depicting Northern Californian landscapes of knotty oak and tufts of green and lilac shrubs.

I though the artists were particularly successful in capturing the violet, melancholy shadows in the eucalyptus forests, and I can feel twilight falling over the hills beyond.  This piece below really reminded me of my grandparent's ranch.

My surprise love of the day was an exhibit by Ellsworth Kelley.  He is best known for strong colors and color block themes, but I thought the below series of fruit and vegetable lithographs were fantastic.  

My favorites were lemon and cala lilly.  They are almost a take on still life, but so simple that they really capture the essence of the plants.

The third exhibit was Amanda Snyder, who was a Northwest artist that seems a bit of a chameleon in her work... I never would have known the below pieces were by the same artist.  I liked her energetic interpretation of zinnias, but the clown was scary!

Not So Far

What happens to all that has been misplaced?

Sand abandoned in the pockets of clothes,

Not so much memories, but the presence we know

The arc of her arm, half finished songs

Lilting in the shadows of the world we found.

Childhood was flinging ourselves at whatever

Came to mind- lions, miles, spoken lines,

Our scribbled trail so hard to trace, pushed

By wind-driven tides that gather and part,

Our footprints falling beneath the waves.

Can they be far, these orphaned things?  Can we

Weave them back together like seams of a kite

Caught by the wind and unfurled for safekeeping,

An inverted anchor pulling towards the sky,

Our brokenness singing above the beach.

When the time comes, it won't be hard to find.

We know it's waving, the kite extending from her arms

To ours.  It's not so far, no time has passed,

We are safe- just waiting for it to fall,

For all that's suspended between sand and sky.

- June 2012