Not in Vain
If I can stop one heart from breaking;
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Emily Dickinson
(Emily’s words sink deep and water thoroughly the soil of my soul. This is it, folks. Humility and love poured out. This is what I’m pondering this week as a mother, wife, and friend.)
~
Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are not death!
and
Turn your back on fear, and your face to whatever may come.
~George MacDonald~
Lilith, p. 36
{Thinking on these two quotes from my readings this week. What are you pondering over? Happy Weekend!}
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Slant snowflakes and slate gray sky, just outside the window. Today was a day of catch-up. I say that everyday around here. Lassoing laundry and slinging sud-soaked dishes was the first order of the day. George Gershwin’s cheery Concerto in F propelled us along. The pellet stove was extra hungry, the smell lingering in the air, not unpleasantly mixing with coffee. The children laugh at me and my Magic Elixir, mmmm, I’m brewing more now. I must admit, I feel old and worn out with all the questions, hullabaloos, and to-dos. Yet, these beautiful people keep me from rusting, well-oiled am I with six of them. Wonder, amazement, and simplicity are alive and well here, and I have them to thank for that. The last page of a wonderful story was turned today, and how extra bittersweet it was to share it with other kindred spirits. All the dust and crumbs of this life, swirl, crescendo, into a lovely soup-y mix. The snowy boots and little mittens. Sweeping up the spilled sunflower seed, a tromp out to the feeders, a welcome respite. A new poetry book to crack open, the tang of the Emerald Isle air hitting me full salty-spray in the face, Yeats wooing me from afar. Arguing about a sewing project, a daughter recording her dreams on my iPhone, admiring two kerosene lamps from Valentine’s Day past, and not to mention a dirty football on the table, crumpled bits of everything, everywhere. Whispering the fortifying words of Apostle Paul, over and over again, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Over and over again, I’m astonished that I get to live this life. It’s not romantic at all, in reality. It’s hard work, the same mind-numbing work, over and over again. But looking at it slant, looking at it through a monocle of love, what I see is an amazing journey in miraculous minutia. My back may ache, my right foot has been bothering me, I need a shower, and extra weight hangs around, but here I am. Discussing the American Civil War and Abe Lincoln with a group of interesting and intelligent people. They remind me of differences in the Union and Confederate flag, bring in the battle of Fort Sumter, and chuckle about Davy Crockett. I just sit and soak it all in. I laughed with them as we listen to the Taming of the Shrew, so much to learn through Will, that’s for sure. Good and bad. Heads get bonked, angry tears happen over messes to be cleaned up, and garbage knocked over. Snow ice cream, taco dinner plans, and endless noise. The sibling riots settle and we pour over maps of Africa, searching the web for information on Cameroon’s violence. Our hearts and souls fly upwards and outwards, beyond the walls of our little home, our state, flitting past our U.S. borders, over the ocean, and enter into the wounds and dusty tears of others. Snow is still falling as the evening envelopes us. My green mug is running on empty, my geranium is blooming, and I’m going to light my lamps for dinner.
Another gift unwrapped here and enjoyed. Good night.
~
Memoir is taking personal experience and turning it inside out. We surrender our most precious understanding so others can feel what we felt and be enlarged.
Natalie Goldberg
Old Friend from Far Away
p. 147
Happy March 1st! My area still has a bit of winter left, but March always brings a gentle promise of the green to come. February was a busier month for me, so I didn’t finish as much. I think I have heavier books on my stack genre and topic wise. What did you finish? I’d love to hear!
The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman (***) – This is the fourth book in The Invisible Library series. I’m a speculative genre fan and I’ve just recently learned that there is a lot that falls under this heading, depending on who you ask. Sci-fi, fantasy, dystopian, magic realism, and so on. I love the fantastical world Cogman has created with the Librarian’s and library being a portal to other worlds to collect rare books to keep the worlds “in balance”. The dragons and fae are intriguing and mysterious. This title was slower, more conversation between Irene, Kai, and Evariste, another Librarian. A dragon throne comes up empty after a mysterious murder and dragon factions are wanting to fill the coveted position. Irene must keep neutral while searching for a rogue Librarian who may have crossed professional lines. Irene is finding neutrality increasingly hard with her assistant Kai, as he is a dragon himself. Vale, the mysterious human police detective wasn’t really in this title, which was strange, as he has played big roles in the previous other three titles. The romantic tension between Kai and Irene, picked up, especially in Irene’s head. Cogman did a really good job of that tension, although it’s been dragging along in the same fashion and I’m sick of the snide “get you into bed comments” from Kai. Overall, I found this to be an entertaining, fun read. I think there is to be a fifth book in this series and I’m looking forward to seeing how Cogman ties everything up. Are you a speculative fiction reader? I know it might seem odd since I write memoir and poetry mostly here, but in fiction I like strange escapism generally.
Stillmeadow Sampler by Gladys Taber (*****) – This title I’ve been reading for about a year and a half. She split this memoir into four parts following the seasons and I read it slowly, making myself read only in what season I currently was in. So with a few months of setting it aside, it took me awhile. Gladys did not disappoint. I found this last bit of reading through the winter chapters of life on her Stillmeadow farm, housework, neighbors, reflections on nature to be charming, meditative, and just beautiful. Taber is one of my five favorite all time writers. I’m still chuckling to myself, because she is pretty much the POLAR OPPOSITE of the above fiction title I read.
The Market Square by Miss Read (*****) – Another of my favorite genres is British family-ish type fiction. Miss Read is the master of beautiful settings and lovely characters that you come to love and care about. Sometimes not much happens, but you still keep reading anyway. This title was a bit different from her Thrush Green and Fairacre series in that it was a bit more sad and darker than those. Two friends grow up together and their families are inseparable until a change in the economy forces a wedge. Misunderstandings, class, race, morality, the World Wars, all test the true friendship between these two men as their lives move on. This was slow start for me and it took me awhile to get into it, but once I did, I loved it. So much to think on and consider and I won’t forget this story! I think this might be a series, but I haven’t checked into it yet.
The Long Journey to Jake Palmer by James L. Rubart (***) – I have mixed feelings about this title. Jake Palmer has it all on the surface, until a freak accident, leaves him burned from the waist down. His wife leaves him and he has to face his demons. Through a series of events, he ends up follow a legend about a portal that will heal and give you your wildest dreams. I found this title intriguing, the writing beautiful, and it did make me think. However, there was just something about it that struck me weird or forced. This was written for the Christian market and it made me think sort of a retelling of Jacob wrestling with God mixed with a magic realism approach.
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis (*****) – I absolutely loved this book about a bus ride between Heaven and Hell and the conversations between “Ghosts” and “Beings”. I found it just lovely and amusing that George MacDonald was Mr. Lewis’s Being. The theology and thoughts were thought-provoking, challenging, and absolutely beautiful.
The Holy Bible (*****) – 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and continuing to dip in and out of the Psalms.
~
Februa, the Roman goddess of health
Hot showers, ice, soup, stirfrys, stircrazys, wealth
Sewing stays, crocheting hearts, piano practice
Jotted jumbles in journals, bleak blackness
Juncos, woodpeckers, sparrows at windblown feeders
Jane Brocket’s Lemon Cake eaters
Carafes of coffee, book packages, thick socks
St. Valentine’s letters, pencils, chalk
Laundry piles, fix-it piles, snow piles, lore
LEGOS, bits of paper, four stitches more
Up, down, down and up, bloody finger prick
Running, hemming, gray-day stitches, quick
Pen pal letters, loose threads, taxes due
Red quilt of a second month, darn pipes blew
The needle set down, the thread wound away
Glad this year, the 28th, be its very last day.
~
Two weeks ago, I walked into the book room at a local Goodwill. Dusty rainbows lined the shelves. Passion, tears, laughter, souls bound in grainy pulp, splattered with inky words, donated away. Hardbacks were $1.99, Children’s and Paperbacks just .99 cents. Someone’s 90,000 words of their life, bleeding, discarded, put up for adoption. I lean sideways, eyes hungrily searching for friends. My kin, my soulmates, my muses. The fluorescent light flickers and hums, others come in and out of the cramped little room, I barely registering them in my peripheral vision. My cart slowly fills, a pair of blue jeans for my daughter and a set of floral serving spoons, disappearing under the mountain. Christopher Milne. Barbara Kingsolver. Pearl Buck. An illustrated version of The Odyssey. Hard back, board books, soft-velvety, well-bent paperbacks. Poetry, thrillers, romance, dictionaries, random spiritual tomes, bizarre self-help, and memoir swirl like a kaleidoscope in my eyes. You are not forgotten. Your raw finger tips, blood-shot eyes, and brain that never shuts up can’t ever be truly thrift-ed away. Immeasurable worth. Crouched on my knees, sweating in my wool coat, I keep scanning, keep loving, keep understanding. Your story, your truth, your lies, your beauty is seen, it was worth it. It isn’t forgotten, even buried in a charity shop. I haven’t forgotten your sacrifice for these precious words. Each a piece of a person, an author. The cashier is now scanning them one by one, stacking them in a box for me. My children and I flip through them as we drive away. Welcome home, dear authors, we prepared a place for you.
~
Better Things
Better to smell the violet
Than sip the glowing wine;
Better to hearken to a brook
Then watch a diamond shine.
Better to have a loving friend
Than ten admiring foes;
Better a daisy’s earthy root
Than a gorgeous, dying rose.
Better to love in loneliness
Than bask in love all day;
Better the fountain in the heart
Than the fountain by the way.
Better be fed by mother’s hand
Than eat alone at will;
Better to trust in God, than say,
My goods my storehouse fill.
Better to be a little wise
Than in knowledge to abound;
Better to teach a child than toil
To fill pefection’s round.
Better to sit at some man’s feet
Than thrill a listening state;
Better suspect that thou art proud
Than be sure that thou art great.
Better to walk the realm unseen
Than watch the hour’s event;
Better the Well done, faithful slave!
Than the air with shoutings rent.
Better to have a quiet grief
Than many turbulent joys;
Better to miss they manhood’s aim
Than sacrifice the boy’s.
Better a death when work is done
Than earth’s most favoured birth;
Better a child in God’s great house
Than the king of all the earth.
George MacDonald
Discovering the Character of God, p.192
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The rainbow swirl of greasy film glimmers up at me. A spot of soap makes it shrink away in concentric circles. The bright, scorching light of sun off snow hits my eyes from the little window above the sink. The brightness is a gift this time of year, as is the flicker of candle flame sitting on the sill. Any sort of light offsets the February gray. The smell of the candle intermingles with dish soap, the sudsy, drips hitting the water with a pleasing, soothing sound. Water is so meditative, running through little streams, out of faucets, down crashing falls, dribbling off eves, and bubbling over rocks. A dangerous, beautiful thing. I wash away the vestiges of spaghetti, oatmeal, and frustrations. Meditating on music, movies, and a glance through the window, a Downy Woodpecker at the suet. The rough towel, that’s seen better days, dry in my damp hands, swiping, stacking, closing cupboard door. Shutting out the bitterness, harsh words, washing it all clean, and stacking it away in the forgetting cupboard. Our days are stories, stories that we are putting down in living ink, blood, sweat, and yes, fat drops of salty tears. Silverware jumbles, clanging, the clink, clink of stacked glasses and mugs, building, working through each step of these relationships. Each day of clanks, clinks, and new blocks for the foundation. I scrub stubborn spots of crusty peanut butter and Nutella, it fading and swirling down into the depths. Just like my children, their childhood, messy, beautiful, and slipping away all too fast, the slurp of the drain licking up the last drop. Dishes that held hot delicious memories of these moments, this twenty-four hours around the sun. Sustenance, conversation, and fruits of one’s hard labor. There’s something so satisfying about dishes and dreams.
~
One of the greatest things in human life is the ability to make plans. Even if they never come true – the joy of anticipation is irrevocably yours. That way one can live many more than just one life.
Maria Trapp
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, p. 260
Writing is torn from a person, it has to be said. If you are going to say something worthwhile, you’re going to burn.
-Unknown author
from Amy Carmichael: Beauty for Ashes by Ian H. Murray
referring to a snow storm:
…all the time there was a rustling and whispering, a sibilance of snow. The air was alive with movement, the dancing and whirling of a thousand individual flakes with a life as brief as the distance from leaden sky to frozen earth. ❤
p. 105
on feeling like one isn’t doing “enough” of __________ in life:
Warmth suddenly flooded Sep’s cold frame. A man could only do so much! He had set his hand to this particular plough and he must continue in the furrow which it made. What use was it to try to set the whole world to rights? He must travel his own insignificant path with constancy and courage. It might not lead to the heights of Olympus, but it should afford him interest, exercise and happiness as he went along. And, Sep felt sure, there would be joy at the end.
p. 206
Miss Read, both above quotes, emphasis mine
The Market Square
I’ve discovered my best work comes from the uncomfortable but fruitful feeling of not having a clue – of being worried, secretly afraid, even convinced that I’m on the wrong track.
Dani Shapiro
Still Writing, p. 51
{Happy Birthday to Abe! These are some quotes that struck me from my weekend reading. Hope they intrigue you as well. I’m mulling over them more as we start a new fresh week. Happy Monday}
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“Rose From Brier”
Thou has not that, My child, but thou hast Me;
And am not I alone enough for thee?
I know it all, know how thy heart was set
Upon this joy which is not given yet.
And well I know how through the wistful days
Thou walkest all the dear familiar ways
As unregarded as a breath of air;
But there in love and longing, always there.
I know it all; but from thy brier shall blow
A rose for others. If it were not so
I would have told thee. Come, then, say to Me:
My Lord, my Love, I am content with Thee.
Amy Carmichael
Mountain Breezes, p. 294
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{Thank you for all your thoughts and encouragement yesterday here and on Facebook regarding my questions about writing. I spent some time this morning praying and reflecting and was so blessed by a few things deep in my heart. This poem above is a recent favorite and is VERY pointed and convicting in a good, challenging way.}
Hello there,
Welcome! Please pull up your chair and grab a cup of your favorite coffee or tea and let’s talk writing, shall we? I’ve been thinking about writing lately, well, more like, I think about words all the time, my brain is always swirling with ideas, stories, like a little spider on my web, latching onto moments, wrapping them up for later opening, assimilating. The question is how does one take all that is up here and put it out beautifully down there? Onto that blank, crisp journal page, or get that blinking cursor moving? Well, the short answer is to just do it. The long answer, I don’t know. I find that it is so hard to roll out a lovely smooth dough from all the ingredients being mixed in my head. I realize I have way too many metaphors going on here. That’s just how fast and how convoluted my brain operates. That’s part of my huge problem. Do you feel the same way? How do you organize your writing? How do you separate different threads and veins and voices rambling in your head? How do you choose which to give priority? How do you remember the light-bulb moments in the midst of cooking dinner or reading to a child? How do you turn off the tide when needed, but like the moon turn it back on and faithfully keep the ebb and flow going? How does one live real life, when the brain is living a thousand others? It often feels like it has to be all or nothing for me. That’s unrealistic. I have a blessed, wonderful life here on earth. One that deserves faithfulness and attention, gratitude in action. One that actually is my real living breathing muse. However, I can’t silence those things happening upstairs and don’t really want too, necessarily. They are beauty, light, and a bit of wrestling with darkness as well. A continuing conversation that binds all of the realness of this life on earth with the moments that inspire and lift us to our life beyond.
I vacillate between just spewing things out (like currently) or taking time to carefully think, research, edit, and meditate on something before the ink dries permanent. The latter takes huge amounts of energy and brain power, which I’m sure we all find in short supply. I fill up on conversations, prayer, nature’s messages, my faith taking on wings, floating through my days, the books I drink from bringing me closer to a small glimpse of glory. I feel desperate at times for it to congeal into something with jello-like form.
Where does one find the stillness to process, slow down, and prioritize? I know for myself, it’s a choice. It’s a choice between getting my to-do list done, or sitting in a comfy arm chair snuggling with my little boy. It’s a choice between conversations with my oldest daughter sprawled on my big bed, or vegging on another Doctor Who episode. It’s a choice between scrolling through Instagram or reading another chapter of a delicious, enticing book. None of these are necessarily better or worse than each other, but for every yes, it’s a no to something else. Excess isn’t necessarily better, but how does one drain away the pond? How does one satisfy the insatiable hunger for words, thoughts, and newness? How does one be content with the little gift pulled from the squeaky bucket from the bottom of the well? How can one stop the constant motion and voices that never shut up, and birth something into life from that mess?
Anyway, just thoughts I’m thinking, metaphors I’m mixing, and awesome alliterations I’m always assembling.
🙂
Thanks for listening. Please feel free to chat back.
~
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 