could be a poem

I was watching Carole King and James Taylor on a PBS look back in time right before bedtime and this knocked on my door and I let it in. Might need some work and, if thats the case, it should go out and find a job because I'm going to sleep.

Once

Liver spots on the sun

Time is running out

Grey smoke curls hanging loosely from the sky

Shedding wonder on my thinning hair

Wonder, as in it was here once

So many things were here once

And I didn't think to say goodbye

film premier

Last Wed. was the premier of "Just One More Day" at the Kremple's Center-a non-profit brain injury foundation located in Portsmouth, N.H. It was a homecoming of sorts with all the trepidation associated with returning home after a long absence with the added anxiety of not knowing how our film would be received. For years I would bring various clients there three days a week and became good friends with many of the members and staff. I couldn't believe that someone was actually pay me for doing this work. Jackie Mike was still there happily spinning around in her wheelchair full of life-takes more than a bullet to the head from a drunken boyfriend to slow that lady down or take away her love of life. I looked at old friends and remembered their stories. I had hugged them them, held them, felt their warm tears on my shoulder, learned from them and now I wondered what they would think of the film I produced. Because their opinion was the only opinion that mattered--nine months work on the line and I would know the verdict in 66 minutes. We gathered in the movie room--members, staff, University of New Hampshire interns who do a semester there s part of their education and then there was Gus, the filmmaker,his girlfriend and his father. I sat way in the back with my therapist friend who was the main interviewer on the film. The lights dimmed. The documentary opens with three young TBI victims telling their stories of suicide attempts filmed live during an hour long broadcast of "Don't Dis My Ability". It is interspersed with subsequent footage of two of the young men and their mothers. Those two segments were designed to show the effect of suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts on family members. I remembered trembling all over when we filmed these segments. We sandwiched these segments around a funny and touching segment of a young lady and man who are as close as two people can be. Her brain injury, the result of being run over by a drunk driver, took away her ability to speak clearly. She uses an electronic communicator. Her story of two devastating brain injuries is simply incredible. The last segment features our radio engineer who is about my age. We wanted to show that people of all ages can fall into the dark pit of suicide. He is a survivor of spinal cancer. I am most affected by this segment and get emotional every time I see it. The audience laughed and cried and cheered at the end. I put my arms around a young lady afterward who could not stop crying. After lunch we all gathered back in the movie room with a question and answer period that included the participants of the film and the filmmaker. I looked over from my chair in the front of the room at a lady I knew for years. Her caregiver had her arm around her shoulder, As long as a I have known her, she has never been able express a moment of emotion. She would be led here and there and would sit impassively like someone who had escaped from the wax museum. Silent tears were running down her cheeks. The members and staff began opening up about what they called a taboo subject and I knew we had done our job. The film ends with each participants dedication. Mine included an old photo of my brother and I standing in front of the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette, Ill. I had dedicated my contribution to my brother who took his life several years ago. Contact me if you would like to purchase a copy of the film.

"puny form"

Tuesday was an incredibly full day--stretch marks appeared on the mystical vessels that contain time. Our guest on the radio show was a thirteen year old girl who loves to write. She gets straight A's in school and loves math and sees the right answers in different colors in her mind. No, I don't understand it. She is in a wheelchair, fed with a g tube, extremely sensitive to heat and cold. Her hand movements drift in the air struggling to find the right letters on her electronic communicator. If you passed her by, you would notice her beautiful face and light brown hair, but you could easily pass her by and think nothing was behind that charming smile. She took my hand and held onto it for minutes and then she took hold of my heart forever. I love good writing and her poems were spectacular. Her grandmother said that she does not see the world like anyone she has ever met or likely will meet again. I agreed--like holding a snow flake in the cold sunshine seeing its uniqueness. She even wrote a song about her grandmother that her music teacher put to music and sings. We all thought during the show that it was the equal to the best love songs we have ever heard. I adored the language of her poetry--full of life spoken by a lifeless male robot trapped in a little black container. But she was not trapped. Her spirit eye traveled through forests and oceans--raindrops had faces that burst with happiness. I would not know that if she had not told me, made me feel the joy of the tiny explosion on my face.

This morning has left me with a lingering reflection of her eyes on my soul allowing me to finally understand what Baha'u'llah meant when He said,"Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form when within thee the universe is folded." Seven Valleys, p.33

Everyone, I mean everyone has some unique contribution--an atom that seeks to be folded into the universe. You have it--believe it--find it and when you do you will have found your true self.

quiet time

In my new life I have time for a half hour of quiet time of deep breathing. I keep a pad and try to write down priorities of the day-- both mundane and spiritual. This came to me-maybe our approaching 30th anniversary--I don't know.

Karen

A few seconds to inhale

A lifetime to exhale

And in between

A moment

You

Gotta run or at least wobble over to Laurels and occupy Samaya.-have a luminous day my friends.

writer's retreat

Between my granddaughter's busy social life of libraries and music class, I attended a writer's retreat at Green Acre with some old and new friends yesterday. Last night I shared an old poem that came to mind because of a discussion about love. I was asked to post it on my blog. I actually don't like a lot of poetry--usually it's over my head. If one comes to me I need to get it out of my head or it rattles around destroying brain cells. Put it on paper, store it on the computer--just as long as it takes the first bus out of town and goes.

Something like what Oscar Wilde said on his deathbed after staring at the garish wallpaper, "Either it goes or I do".

Home

If you journey far into the abstract wilderness

If you are a "wanderer in the wilderness of love"

Remember to tear off little pieces of your dreams

And let them float to the earth

Otherwise you may never find your way home

What is it about love

That pushes you away

And pulls you toward it

With equal intensity

Love causes the sea to rush in

But the sea is the source of tears

Love dances with the moon

But the moon is the birthplace of sorrows

One day the sea will find its calm

One day the moon will lie down on a bed of stars

One day love will find its home

We also heard some Rumi poems. This is my tribute to Rumi

No Rumi at the Inn

Seek refuge within the mountain fortress of oneness during times of praise

Seek refuge within the valley fortress of singleness during times of condemnation

Ah! But what happens when we find ourselves lost in the desert of apathy

Where looks and words whirl furiously before dying at our feet

Seek here amidst the blowing, blinding sands a Rumi home

Safe from the two great tests.

some weekend

Most days are a combination of ups and downs so that I walk upright neither weighed down stooped over or levitating a foot off the ground. This weekend was a little unreal because the good news came in a rapid succession. First, and foremost was the birth of Violet Olivia and the good health of of mother and daughter. Second my monthly weigh-in revealed I lost 11 pounds and for the first time in twenty years my weight fell below 300lb.-296.6 to be exact. I was informed that our film on suicide prevention, "Just One More Day" will be shown at a leading Brain Injury Foundation program on March 9. The whole day will focus on the film and their will be no other program. It will be shown in the morning to the members, families, staff, University of New Hampshire interns who spend a semester helping run programs and I don't know who else. The first step in the process of this film used in schools and the training of health professionals. The same weekend I made arrangements with a new gorgeous restaurant to use our world proverb place mats and also sell our world proverb book. This is a test run to prepare us to approach major restaurant chains. Imagine kids and parents everywhere learning that the whole world has wisdom, not just Americans while eating a sandwich. Still a long shot, but who knows. Our radio show is very popular and we are being urged to go weekly and longer(the spirit is willing, but not the flesh. I know I will have bad days as well as good days in the future and some kind of balance will emerge and I will have days when I will walk with a stoop. But I will have my memories intact of floating with my head in the clouds for a couple of days.

radio show

I might not be tough enough for this show. Last Tuesday's guests were promoting the documentary, "Lost in Laconia". Lost is the word for those children who lived on the back ward of Laconia State Hospital. A more fitting name would be Laconia Children's Warehouse. The film maker was accompanied by an elderly woman whose gray hair and weathered face concealed an always young mother forever fixed in time and space-a moment when her newborn was judged too imperfect for the world of the perfect. At the age of five they could not care for Janet anymore. Seizures and a litany of physical and mental issues and the urging of experts resulted in her being placed in Laconia. I felt heartsick asking her questions. "Did she know you and your husband?" Could she smile". "Could she stand at all?". She was quiet--a remembered photo hung on some inner wall. " "My husband loved her", she spoke. "She would crawl over to his easy chair at night and pull herself to her feet wordlessly holding out her cheek to be kissed." There is more, lots more, too much more.