Watermark

Me at 3, and a Snapshot Poem

 

I pulled this photo out for an assignment from the mondo beyondo dream lab + the gifts of imperfection class*:

Your task today is to find a childhood photo of yourself and dedicate a song to the tender part of you who is making her way back to her whole heart.

For the song, I chose True Colors, by Cyndi Lauper.

Then I moved to my next task, my weekly snapshot poem. And, on revising and considering, I think this poem was written from the same place -- from me, to three-year-old me.

 

Snapshot 19 January 02011

You follow this arrow
in the only direction
you can go. Choose
what you will.

Love what you love.
You’ve been here before,  
this day, yesterday, the next,
just around a dark corner.

Live in the world in which
you find yourself, mountains,
the sea, your own inner landscapes.
Sliding on ice, unsteady, uncertain,

no arm to hold to but your own.
This planet, this land, this water,
they roll under you, through you.
How is it the sky fades

from dark to dawn? But fade
it does, again and again. This
is your home. It is what you make it.
And again you rise into it,  

unfinished, unfamiliar, strange
to yourself in wakefulness.
Brilliance in the dark, subtlety
in light, nothing is as it seems.

Speak clearly. Say to yourself:
this is mine, this is me.

                        ~

 

 

*This class has much to recommend it, and much to complain of, but that's another post.

Isolation and Shame

 

 

There are side effects of long illness. Isolation is one of them.

I was lucky, relative to other folk with chronic illness, in many ways. I was lucky to not have a partner who would -- or would not -- struggle with this burden. Some few may be lucky to have partners who walk beside them, but from my reading it seems they are few indeed. With all the adaptations this illness required, negotiating through it with another person was a complication I am happy to be without.

When I was well, friendships were grown around activities. Friends and I did things together: auctions, concerts, plays, farmers’ markets, art fairs, antique shops, lectures, lunch, dinner, breakfast … and, of course, work. When all that falls away, it’s no surprise that friends fall away, too.

Or perhaps I fell away. Those first years I was not only fatigued; I was enraged.

Many tried. I tried, too, through the fatigue and frustration.

Friends may also have stepped away due to my own rage and resentment. I was cranky. Not just from pain, but from powerlessness. A workaholic deprived of work; a swimming addict denied the pool -- I was not in a good mood. I was not a graceful patient. I know that some of you were. I don’t know how.

That, at least, is better now. Have I adapted, accepted, or merely given in? I’m not sure, but whatever it is, it’s better. I’m much more able to focus on living a good life, as the life it is, rather than regretting the life that is not.

But the stubbornness, the perseverance, that served me well in my professional life did not serve me well here. It took years to learn to pace myself, and I still struggle with that.