Looking Back, Looking Forward

Yesterday, despite blue skies, was a day turned inward.  On December 27th, one of my dear friends from St. John Fisher passed away. Yesterday, I went to her celebratory mass, which was so poignant and rich in the words spoken by her children and grandson.  Father Jim Callan has a wonderful way of lifting 
the spirits of so many who were/are truly grieving our loss. Truthfully, I don't know how I'm going to handle her absence. I'm so sad.  I feel like I've fallen down a well. I've gone to sleep, hoping to have one last conversation with her.  She's come to me in dreams, where we're sitting on some jutting rocks, which looks like the coast of Oregon or Japan, I really don't know but we're having a picnic, sharing cheese sandwiches and watching the sky change, and
she points to something in the distance, but I can't see it.  It's so vague.  The shape moves in the gait of a horse galloping, galloping with all of its muscles engaged and hooves pounding the surface between sky and water and suddenly it rains . . . 

***
Yesterday was the last day of December.  I overheard someone say, see you next year or next month, whichever you prefer.

***

This is the New Year.  Woke up at 3 a.m.  There were three deer eating fallen apples in our orchard.  I watched their grazing silhouettes.  The snow angel Brigid  made in the middle of the yard seemed to be a perfect impression, glowing in the blue light.  I decided to stay up and write. 


***

I imagine this year will be different.  As it always is.  Often I wish I had transparency in the whowhatwherewhywhen of my living.  But transparency doesn't make poetry.  I'm always caught between two worlds.

***

What to do today?  Everything you do today, you will do for the whole year.
Choose wisely.

       

 

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Entering a very busy time of year-- the pace will be gallop until the end of the semester. I'm feeling cranky because I have another terrible cold. This cold has stressed my breathing and voice capacity, so it's going to be tricky teaching this upcoming week. I'm not looking forward to it. I just hope I'm able to do it.

Looking forward to this week: Sonja Livingston with be reading from her award-winning memoir Ghostbread on March 18th, 2010 at 7:30 p.m., at St. John Fisher College in the Golisano Gateway Midlevel. There will be refreshments and book signing too.

I love, love, love this memoir. If you haven't read it, you must put it on your to read list-- I have given it to friends and family. It's quite a story of growing up. The form is inviting, short vignettes appointed as chapters that travel the Rochester, N.Y. and surrounding landscape.
Sonja's writing allows her readers to see her family situation from a point of view that encourages understanding rather than "Can you believe this happened to me." Her storytelling is poignant, revealing the good and not so good situations growing up in a family of seven, with a mother who was trying to make a life for herself and her children. It wasn't easy to say the least. So if you're in the Rochester area, I hope you will come to her reading at St. John Fisher.