Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was 

yourself. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to it self, to stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you have ignored

for another, who knows you by heart

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the despaired notes, 

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your life

~Derek Walcott

The Guest House

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival

A joy, a depression, a meanness

some momentary awareness comes

as a unexpected visitor

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even is they're crowd of sorrows

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture

Still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you

out for some new delight

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

~Say I Am You poems of Ruminator

Poem for Trina written in 1974 when times were difficult at home. My heart in this current season of my life (45 years later) is one of love and forgiveness. Trina and I share a bond as if we were life long best friends. I love you with all my soul and heart, Trina.

A Poem for Trina, circa 1974

Our not writing has nothing to do with lost love and forgetfulness,

It is because since you leaving us has left us to ponder those reasons,

We’ve scanned ever beach in which you used to run and dance;

Seeking those messages that you have hidden.

We have climbed those mountains and hills, the ones you have climbed in your spoken dreams with the anticipation of a poet in the endless search for a poem that will be both light and day as night and dark. Bittersweet.

To properly decipher your words and thoughts is hard.

We can only interpret them as we get them.

We can’t pass through the tangled webs you have spun between us.

We can only tale an occasion to call through and wait patiently for a reply.

Yes, times are bad, but we are trying to piece together that elusive puzzle to harmony between us.

At times, we do get tangled in each other’s webs, but we can be awarded for the struggle to happiness..

We won’t quit living now that you are away; we have to do our best with what we have, and only pray for things we don’t have.

And yes, we do have hope for your new life away from us, and we do have faith in you too.

We are happy to hear of your happiness and success.

In the future we hope that as adults we could be friends that are able to laugh and cry together about the life we did have as children.

Be thankful that we have you in our most pleasant memories.

We are always around to help bridge that gap that we all made.

As you know, some are glad to be rid of their relatives when frustrations that are long hidden come into the light.

Maybe those frustrations that come to light in the future could bring us together as adults when we can help each other through those mazes in life.

Will we grow to admire each other, or will we constantly antagonize each other?

Will our reunions be ones of pleasure or obligations?

Sometimes, even most of the times we think of those gifts you have given our lives that made times more tolerable even brighter.

I often think of those times we bond like friends and not like sister, and the times we built bridges instead of walls.

Will your poetry be filled with lush flowery country, covered in fall leaves or snow covered mountains mirrored in clear, clear icy lakes filled with shining hopes and dreams?

Will the children be dancing? Or will there be mourning?

Our letters are sometimes joyous and sometimes angry, sometimes filled with merriments that we had in our separate lives.

Your homecomings carry the same emotions as a college girl just coming home for a visit.

Sometimes you flower us with your joys, your triumphs,  but there are those visits that you shower us with your anger, anxieties, and sometimes hostility.

The reason for this poem is to bring out those things we normally can not talk about unless we all want to wage each of our individual wars with each other.

We understand that sometimes when you read our letters and on you occasional visits home we all feel like strangers.

Yes, things have changed, like the changing of the tides, our separate lives too, have changed and continue to be works in progress along this season of our lives.

You may not have recognized it, but we too feel like strangers. We have all grown, our potentials and meanings in life have grown too.

Your life, will hopefully go beyond that door to self-assurance and determination to the spring seasons of our lives with forgiveness and peace in our hearts as a beacon guiding our way.

We hope that your life has grown to the wise and curious of a poet and the creative naturalist and artist that you are becoming.

You, like us can’t hide our wounds of our past pain, and cover those scars to our sorrows.

But we can open our doors to our past gaieties .

We cannot be false friends, it is less painful to be good enemies.

We cannot determine each other’s feelings and come out with the right answer like a simple math problem.

But, we can recognize and forgive each other’s issues and problems and lend a helping hand when needed.

If we shouldn’t meet again may we be right in our decisions.

But if we should meet again may it be as friends and not strangers.

Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
enwrought with golden and silver light,
the blue and the dim and the dark cloths
of night and light ant the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet,
But I being poor, have only my dreams,
I have spread my dreams under your fee,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
~William Butler Yeats

He asked me for charity

He asked me for charity
God came to my house and asked for charity;
And I fell on my knees and cried,
"Beloved, what may I give?"
"Just love," He said, "Just love."

 ~St Francis of Assisi

Broken Branches – the Swennes Beach House

Mom knew she was home the minute she drove over the Oregon California border.  But it was the beach house in Manzanita  Oregon that brought tears to her eyes and stirred her spirit.  She would gather up her scattered life and put it all together so it had meaning there.  That smell of ocean sea weed, salty and full of iron and fish with the musty of the beach house was an elixir for her.  The house was like her parents always being alive even though they had passed away many years ago; they rested in every corner, in the furniture and in the kitchen.  The smell of coffee, bacon and eggs, the smell of huckleberry pie in the oven  always welcomed her.  The little house sounded with the inhaling and exhaling of the ocean just two blocks away. 

The white two story house with the slanted roof and blue door had been a wedding gift to her parents. Her father would build the house on the lot for his eighteen year old bride. They would raise their four daughters there. They would see their many grandchildren run in and out and up and down the stairs and through the blue door with excitement. It was summertime and school was out. 

I remember being afraid of the cross eyed deer’s head with ornaments on his horns that sat in the space that separated the attic and the door way to the upstairs room.  Esak.  I would stop to stare at it awhile before quickly dodging Esak and running downstairs. I ran past the book shelves that lined the walls along the stairs. I ran my fingers along the books that were all well read and dog eared. I ran past the table with its jigsaw puzzle that only gets worked on at night and when the weather was cold and stormy. I ran in the kitchen to the smell of clams cooking.  My aunts would be gathered .  I was scared that Esak would  chase me. I loved to hear the old stories…of the time mom was shooting rabbits from the front yard.  Her father would come home with a nearby farmer.  He would say that mom shot one of his heifers a mile away.  The farmer was bereft. But this was just a joke papa said as my mother started to cry.

When the house burned down, the whole family grieved  the loss of an important family member.  IT was like losing your history.  Esak would be found smouldering in front of the wreckage of the house in embers.  Aunt Karene would find her baby buggy. Her earliest memories of times in this house.  She remembered when it was a tent with rolled up walls.  It was always sunny. She would collect rocks and shell and the knarled driftwood. Dig for clams. She remembered the house being built first a small one story and then a two story house with the blue door and the slanted roof. Mom would say it was like someone died. She grieved. 

Eventually, my aunts would rebuild the house. 

I would come back to this scene years later.  A California girl.  Mill Valley California was my home of 38 years.  But I would come back here to the scene of many childhood memories of mom and me to cast mom’s ashes onto Manzanita beach and in the garden of the Swennes beach house .

I remember, I remember  Fourth of July parades and fire works. Karene’s famous spegetti and salad.  Hot cocoa and marshmallows over a fire on the beach.  Of rolling down the doons and dancing in the sand.  Of cold a stormy weather outside, of being bundled up in front of the fire place keeping warm and safe,  Of digging for clams.

I remember, I remember this is a house of long lazy summers, of honeymoons and walks hand in hand along the sand with the fog rolling in.  

I remember, I remember mom telling me she came up from California to be with her mother as she was dying.  Her mother would stay at the beach house during her dying period.  She would teach her self French, because you never know, miracles do happen, but then again, they may speak French in Heaven. She would read and read books of around the world.  When she got too weak to hold the books, Papa ripped off the covers for her so that they wouldn’t be too heavy for her to hold.  When that was too much, Papa read to her.  

I thought of this years later as I was scattering moms ashes. I was alone. I had a hard time sharing my grief then.  I knew it was wrong to not include others. But I was always a difficult person, often negative.  When I had my nervous breakdown in 1994, My paranoia and psychosis alienated most of my mothers family. I often did irresponsible things that were hurtful to them and others.  I had a hard time sharing my grief.  This would make them mad, I know.  This is a town and a house that spoke of memories shared.  

The house was locked, so I walked around it and scattered on vile of mom’s ashes in the garden.  I heard the birds chirping and in the distance the seagulls caw calling on the beach.  Calling me to come smell and taste the ocean air and the smells of seaweed and wood smoke.  Seagulls are picking at crabs and fish that had washed ashore.  There is no litter, this is a loved place. A place of calmness of my scattered thoughts and broken life.  I was here with the memory of the young police officer that built the house for his eighteen year old bride, a house that they would raise their 4 daughters in.

I climbed down the craggy boulders that make the seawall imaging doing this with my sisters, cousins and dogs. I took off my shoes and walked along the shore line. I could feel  The wet of the salty waves against my legs and The wet sand in between my toes. I opened the vial that was all that was left of my mother and let the wind carry it along the waves and out to sea. Good by mom, I cry, I love you.  

Overcoming Life's Trials~

My mother felt that we needed a religious education with our secular schooling. Ever since I can remember. God was a part of my life.  Mom was a staunch Unitarian. But the only Unitarian church in the area was in the city at the time. So I was educated at St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Marin City from grade school until I graduated from high school.

I spent most of my life living with my mother. My father left us when I was seven and was absent from our lives. I was my mother's caregiver when she was terminally ill from cancer and sarcoidoisis.  I saw the catholic church as an outlet for my grief. I saw Mary as a second Mother; always there always comforting. I also found the prayers soothing. But I was a protestant catholic; I found the church to be conflicting to my more christian beliefs. That only through Christ, could we find salvation.

It was in 1994 that God found me. I was sitting in my office, when the Holy Spirit cam to be showering me with love. This was a love that I never felt before, it was total and unconditional. I started to cry. How could I be worthy of this love? I have many sins and regrets. Yet I was receiving total and forgiving love. God said, "I am here for you." From then on God became everything to me. I sought to find a church fellowship to be a part of. When I moved to San Rafael, I searched for a church to go to close to my house. I saw the sign for the Open Door Church. This was the church that my friend, Frank LaForge went to until his death. This was the church that transformed Frank's life and brought him comfort. I have been with Open Door church for five years now.

I spent most of my life fighting my demons. I had a nervous breakdown in 1994 and was diagnosed iwth schizoaffective and bipolar disorder. I took years to fix my broken life. I went into intensive therapy for four years and went back to Christ. I was hospitalized four times. I was homeless for two and a half years and in poverty for seventeen years. Yet joy and gratitude filled my life as God led me to having my own apartment and security. Through Christ, I have found the strength to confront and confess my sins. I began to feel the bitterness and paranoia that I was for most of my live leave.  I started counting lives blessings and Gods grace afforded me. I became a nicer person, finally making friends.

Daily, I affirm that I give my will to God's will.

Tough Questions From Kids ~ Should I stand up for myself around pushy kids?~

Yes, tell them how you feel. Be firm, but don't yell and lose your cool. The Bible says that a gentle answer will help calm a situation. Staying cool and being as nice as you can is your best chance for a good outcome. Sometimes this won't work, and you'll be tempted to fight.  But don't do it--walk away instead. If kids get pushy, tell and adult.