Edith Rose

I recently received some wonderful news that a publisher is going to put out in May an anthology of my stories. They are very enthusiastic and want more and more so I have been going through and trying to give them everything I have. The story they love the most is "Edith Rose". All of these stories are at least 15 years old and ER is no exception. ER entered the world of visible creation(forgive this transcendental verbiage)as a result of my friendship with the real ER. She was a foster child bouncing from one home to another growing up. She would tell me little scarring vignettes from time to time. One day I impulsively promised that I would write a fictional story based on her childhood. I remember saying that there were no Baha'i stories about what it was like growing up as a foster child. Later I thought, "Oh my God, now I actually have to do the writing!". The writer's brain that call my fingers home came to the rescue. I imagine a contentious conversation about the brain between my ears and the brain between my pinkie and thumb about making promises that someone else had to follow through on. The Baha'i Publishing Trust at one time was very high on the story, but wanted it to be longer. By the time I finished the editor I was working on left and there were budget issues and they lost interest. So now after all these years my promise will see the light of day which will then penetrate the dark night of Edith Rose. The real person this story went on to become my own personal heroine. Heroes and heroines, like all human beings, have flaws and sometimes the flaws make a timid mortal like myself believe that maybe I can overcome my fears. Maybe I can do more than write about heroes.The last time my brother made the trip from my old hometown in New York to Maine (which was a minor miracle) he was in terrible shape. He used the toilet and when I went in later I was shocked to see blood spatters all over the place.I cleaned up so the kids wouldn't see this. He sat later on the sofa and the real ER who had been a nurse when she was younger was rubbing his swollen oozing legs. My loner brother, whose closest friend was a chess computer, looked at her on her knees and told her, "You are my friend". Simple words, common everyday words, but in over fifty years I had never heard him call anyone a friend. I couldn't look at his legs, much less touch them. When he went back to N.Y. he continued to deteriorate. She and another Baha'i friend would help him bathe he was so weak. I don't know all the things she did for him. God the Writer knows. God the Kind and God the Merciful, and God the Blind who one day presents us with a tablet of our own moments when we were able to rise above the muck and mire of fear knows. He will strain to pick up the tablet designated for the real Edith Rose. Sweat will pour down His Face. Tears will pour down His Face that will fall down as rain on my brother's grave and heal his legs, his heart, his soul. And as he heals, I heal.I look forward to giving the first copy to my friend.

Tis the Season-2011

Tis the Season-2011

If a door can open
Then one day it will open
If a door can close
Then one day it will close
All that matters
All that will ever matter
Is on what side of the door will you stand
If a tear stained body
Can not rise to its feet
Then will you stand for them?
Its all that matters
Its all that will ever matter

Valley of the Blue Moon

I had such a nice day with my expanding family. How ironic that I should be shrinking when my family is growing with son-in-laws and babies. My Buddhist friend, who was one of six friends in our Green Acre class last weekend who knew very little about the Baha'i Faith, described his personal meditation of seeing his breathing. This poem could be from that conversation or perhaps my favorite movie from the James Hilton novel, "Lost Horizon". In the movie, the main character, played by Ronald Coleman, is brought to a garden paradise at the top of the world. Himalayan peaks sheltered the Valley of the Blue Moon from the harsh elements. Every now and then when nobody is around I pop in the dvd and imagine I have stumbled through a narrow opening where time is dramatically slowed-where a person can live several days in that moment between inhale and exhale.

The Valley of the Blue Moon

A tidal wave moment of neither breathing in or breathing out.

I enter a valley of stillness that weary travelers stumble upon.

To rest, to heal, to become whole.

To dream of words and colors.

Warming my hands by the fire of timelessness

I stand high on a narrow path

Drawn by the sight and sound of chanting candles lit with grief

Weaving their way through the darkness of the Valley of the Blue Moon below

A familiar voice, my voice,

Tells me

I cannot stay here.

I exhale.

The tide rushes in.

The ball I have thrown high in the air

Has fallen to the earth

And so must I.

new poem

Brief Visit

My heart aches sitting in this green wicker chair.

Watching the beauty of the world pass by.

Beauty that visits, but doesn't stay.

"I made an agreement at the moment of creation:

One life, one lifetime.

Do you remember?" He reminds me.

One day another will sit in this chair.

Feel the warmth of the morning sun on cold memories.

See you spring to life again.

If only for a moment.

old photos

Karen tore up the house looking for her passport in preparation for her trip to Ethiopia in a few weeks. Thank God she found her passbook because a major clean up took place unearthing and returning to earth various strange discoveries. One of the treasures were photos of my grandmother and Laurel when she was one year old. Ma must have been close to a hundred years. I'm still amazed that a women who gave birth to eight children and ate awful food. I mean awful food! Donuts and half cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast. Beer with her supper. A shot of whiskey if she had company. And here I am eating like Ghandi with an upset stomach. So much for justice.

That's not what I started out to write. I looked at the photos and saw such love in her face for my one year old daughter. Laurel, of course, doesn't remember, but I had forgotten that look also--mores the pity. I remember the quirky, funny stories like how, if she had something on her mind, she would walk to our house next door, pass through Dr. Mary's waiting room and walk right in to ask her daughter a question. Some poor soul would be lying on the table half naked and Ma would ask every time, "Mary, you got customer?" Kind of obvious I would think. My mother would turn bright red. "Ma!, how many times do I have to tell you? They're patients! Not customers! Just what do you think I'm doing in here? Imagine the poor unfortunate lying there knowing my mother is going to take all her anger out on their naked butt when Ma finally leaves. Ma's burning question might be that she wants some milk from the store or where are we going for Xmas two months from now. Stories like this come back to me, but its that look when Laurel visited her at the nursing home that I hope Ill always remember.

A visit with Ray today

A Visit with Ray

Me, In my green wicker chair

Ray, I can't stay

Me, You never do

Ray, I'm sorry

Me, No need, my friend

Ray, You always understand

Me, Where have you been this time?

Ray, so far now, so very far from here

Me, Like a memory?

Ray, A warm memory

Me, Are you going back?

Ray, No, I can't go home again

Me, Neither can I

Maine morning

I have discovered mornings. I remember a notorious night owl saying years ago that he was 30 years old before he found out that there was a six 0'clock in the morning. I have been in the FA program for 13 months (weigh-in day is tomorrow) which is when I discovered six a.m. because I was asked, with all the shock of a cold shower, that I was expected to call in my food for the day to my sponsor and then, with all the shock of an arctic shower, that I was expected to actually eat what I had written down. Strange words like integrity and honesty were used--still covered in permafrost. It's summer and the frozen mist disguised as excess adipose tissue has melted away. Now, I am eager to do all sorts of things if I am not called into work. Yesterday, after my food call, I continued working on a project in front of the open garage. I have been refinishing rock maple wooden chairs that I had bought along with a round matching table years ago for my mother's house-then my brother's house. I sit in half in the shade of the garage stripping the old finish away, then putting on a new finish. This is a perfectly awful, messy undertaking that leaves a disgusting mess of paper towels and crusty steel wool on the garage floor. For some reason it calms my restless soul. Maybe it is the sight of Karen's flower garden or the coolness of a Maine morning or the salty aroma of the nearby tidal river or maybe for a few hours I have become part of nature--let in the back door because I have finally engaged in the messy process of renewal, rebirth--just like my reborn table and chairs I have left behind the detritus of life on the floor next to the bathroom scale. All a 175 pounds of it and counting. Now I will change into some grungy clothes and work on the last chair. Look at the flowers smell the river, feel the cool air and listen to Dar Williams sing, "The beauty of the rain is how it falls, how it falls..."--off me.