Two Early Loves

I guess that I have always had a romantic cast of mind. Sometimes it seems to me that longing is my heart's default position.. By the time I was four I was being read to by my mother and I had two favorite poems which I asked her to read over and over to me. One was THE HIGHWAYMAN by Alfred Noyes and the other was Lochinvar by Sir Walter Scott. Here is the text of LOCHINVAR: Lochinvar BY SIR WALTER SCOTT O young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; And save his good broadsword he weapons had none, He rode all unarm’d, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. He staid not for brake, and he stopp’d not for stone, He swam the Eske river where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late: For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. So boldly he enter’d the Netherby Hall, Among bride’s-men, and kinsmen, and brothers and all: Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword, (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,) “O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?” “I long woo’d your daughter, my suit you denied;— Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide— And now I am come, with this lost love of mine, To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.” The bride kiss’d the goblet: the knight took it up, He quaff’d off the wine, and he threw down the cup. She look’d down to blush, and she look’d up to sigh, With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,— “Now tread we a measure!” said young Lochinvar. So stately his form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume; And the bride-maidens whisper’d, “’twere better by far To have match’d our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.” One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reach’d the hall-door, and the charger stood near; So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung! “She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar. There was mounting ’mong Graemes of the Netherby clan; Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran: There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see. So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? Source: The Longman Anthology of Poetry (Pearson, 2

A Strange Wish

Reading a poem by George Herbert who has become my new favorite poet, I come upon these lines that startle me so much I make one of those involuntary sounds Is it a chortle or a snort or a little stifled shout? The poem is titled AFFLICTION I--and here are the lines that shook me:

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

None of my books will show

I read. and sigh, and wish I were a tree;

For sure I then should grow

To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust

Her household to me; and I should be just.

I have often had the exact thought and could never share it. I wanted to be a tree so that I would not be free to choose, I would just be what I was supposed to be. If I were an acorn I would be an oak-- not change to a cherry or long to be a maple. My freedom messes me up-- it makes me anxious. What if I make the wrong choice? What if I miss the point and choose the wrong job or the wrong husband? Then I saw that God requires freedom. That is what makes us great and worthy--that we choose to love God and to follow Him--we could and do choose otherwise. Divinity has no interest in coerced love. We must invite him into our lives. He will knock and knock but he will not enter unless he is invited. There is something magical and miraculous about that fact of freedom. He gave freedom to the angels and they revolted. He gave freedom to Adam and Eve and they ate of the forbidden fruit. But not the horses or elephants or the lions or cows--they simply follow their natures and instincts and cannot be faulted.

Words, Words, Words

WORDS, Words Words I am beginning this narrative as my personal counterpoint to the narrative that a good friend of mine that I knew in Cincinnati has created about her life. I will attempt to tackle in my way the questions that she raises about meaning and life myths especially as they seem to be more urgent questions as we get older. Certainly I have been a person who has thought and explored questions of meaning. My push in my own reading and writing has been spurred by my desire to know and my delight in all the books that are in the world and the wonders that they contain.I would say that for me books have been the tools of my search into self knowing. Books have been a central focus of my life and love since I was young. my mother says that my first word was "book." That was the word she used for the magazines that I loved to sit with and turn the pages and look at the pictures from the time that I was 6 months old. Always I have loved the world of words and story. I found refuge there. That is what I have discovered that since my mother was an avid reader herself, she understood and praised my reading. She never yelled at me for reading—in fact if any one said I read too much, she would answer—let her read more and learn more because education and learning can never be taken from you. Early on in life I understood also that my middle birth position between two sisters with Down Syndrome meant that I was to be their protector and defender. My mother did not encourage violence or fights but where my sisters were concerned—if they were under attack from teasing or taunting children, I was expected to take action and to fight back. So there were two basic rules-- 1.Reading was never wrong 2.Defending my sisters was always right These were the often announced absolutes of my young life. The household that I lived in was intrinsically matriarchal—my mother, her younger sister, my two sisters and me. My father lived with us until I was nine years old. He was genial, joking man who often countered my mother's cautions and warnings. He was a compulsive gambler and had all of the suppressed energy and excitement of gamblers who are themselves daily running towards the big win that they know will be theirs tomorrow. My mother loved my father and enjoyed his jokes and easy going charm but she had discovered that she could not depend on him and that betting on a horse would always trump buying groceries. I saw my mother begin and complete difficult tasks on a daily basis. She was energetic and cheerful. She taught herself to paper and paint and would transform our tenement with her bright color combinations and creative use of wallpaper. She constantly improved our environment. So I saw that women could and often must take on big jobs. I did not yet feel any limitations in being a girl.

Something I just made

IN the spirit of this blog and my new determination to stop waiting to get better and to do something that I can do now. That is the only way to make it better--I post the FIRST DRAFT of a poem I wrote for a Workshop I have enrolled in online SOUND THE TRUMPETS--- here goes First draft of SOUND poem

INDIAN SUMMER on the Banks of the TEN MILE RIVER

I park the car so we can see the falls

shimmering like shook silk

water so still above the low dam

beaten to froth below like beer foaming in a glass

I lower the windows, warmth enters

bringing with it murmurs like slurring drunks

of waters never silent shush

sliding slowly over the upper pond, swans

glide in the reflecting brown water

their wake churns seed pods and leaves

below shallow water gurgles between suds and tree snags

Three geese fly low under the stone bridge

squawking loudly as they land ungainly

flapping, skimming, breaking the calm

like children let out at recess

or a late inning runner sliding into third.

Waiting to get better

This has emerged as my problem--I wait to get better and promise myself that when I am better I will do the things I want to do. This seems to me to be a dangerous continuation of a self-undermining habit I have had all my life. I have often been waiting for more time or a better time to pay attention to my own work. I have not allowed myself to devote myself to creative work. MY job, my teaching, my research, my editing, my scholarly writing all took priority. I think they did because they were not as scary--I knew that I could do them and not risk rejection. I felt that teaching was my vocation since childhood, and I loved the time in the classroom. I also separated my intellectual life from my creative life--or I should say that I made my intellect primary and I allowed my creative life to augment and enhance my scholarly writing and presenting. I never put my writing of poetry and plays in first place--or not for very long. Now I feel the pressure of time and the fact of disease and aging processes. These scare me and make me understand that in the immortal words of Elvis--IT'S NOW OR NEVER

Getting Real?

TAKING THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG IN EARNEST I AM EXPERIMENTING WITH MY TRAVEL WRITING--> In the past week I have started some writing projects that involve me with other people. This represents an attempt to break out of my isolation and to connect with other people who are also interested in writing and improving their writing. Two of the projects are informal and are in the opening stages The first project is with my niece Nimmie. In 2004 she went to India for a long visit and to acquaint herself with her father's family and his culture and the places that were part of his life as a boy and young man in India. Nimmie was born and raised in Canada, and like many Canadian children of immigrants she speaks English and also French but no Indian language. She developed a habit while travelling of writing about her adventures in a diary that she shared with friends and family. I had read and admired earlier journals she posted online of journeys to Cuba and Guatemala. Now she has a 90 page manuscript detailing her time in India, and she would like to raise it to a publishable level. Nimmie is a talented writer and has a funny and engaging persona as a traveler. I would like to help her improve her book for publication and also to use the opportunity to concentrate on one of my own travel writings and see what I can make of it now. In my past travels I spent a year in India, many summers in Ireland and a year in Romania. I only fitfully and very unevenly tried to write about those times. Helping Nimmie and taking my own advice, I might be able to make something I could publish about my locales. Or I might find a way of expressing that time in poetry or drama. I am embarking on these new writing initiatives on line in the spirit of the conclusion that I came to after many sessions with my therapist---DO WHAT I CAN DO NOW. DON"T WAIT TO BE ALL BETTER TO DO IDEAL AND MORE AMBITIOUS PROJECTS>

What is lost in translation

My husband turned 80 years old a few days ago. I have told him that we will celebrate this big birthday for the entire month of October. October is a special month--there is a change in the light : the air seems molten gold that floods the world with some hidden meaning. I got him two CDs of the ghazals of Ghalib set to music. He likes to listen to them and sometimes he translates the Urdu phrases as they are sung and repeated. One he noticed today "One desire can eat up an entire life; desires come by the thousands/I 've received what I asked for many times; but it was not enough." I once would have thought that this insatiability is one of the proofs of human failure, now I see it more as a sign that yearning is our default position--our glory. There is something that we want that cannot be satisfied by mortal things. Shakespeare has one of his characters say "I have immortal longings." Augustine said that our souls are made for God and we will be "restless until we rest in Thee." Shelly, another poet, wrote about "the desire of the moth for the star, the day for the morrow" Is this restlessness the best thing about us--that we know that we were meant for something more than this mortal coil--that we are hungry to be reunited with the spirit that made us. Writing about the endless, hopeful human activity when there is no cause to hope, Ghalib writes "The efforts I make in my life resemble a bird in a cage/ Who can't stop gathering straws for her nest." One funny line from Ghalib " God sent an angel to drive Adam from Eden, we've all heard that story,/But when you threw me out I felt something much worse had happened.

Hopkins' Hymn to Diversity

               PIED BEAUTY

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him

This is one of my favorite poems because it celebrates the unmatchable abundance of Creation.  Often I have been struck by the sheer excessiveness of the world's beauty --it seems almost gratuitous. This poem tackles that fact  head on.  What it seems to do  for me is to clear the way for each and everyone of us  to be loved in the eyes of God.  God made so much  difference in the world--each snowflake, each blade of grass, each DNA,--he made all that difference because he likes difference. HE  is all one and that means that he contains  multitudes. He contains all the possibilities, and he wants to see each and every one of them flourish. HE does not play favorites He created everything and  He pronounced everything that HE  made as GOOD.
I am watching  Pope Francis slowly ride through a crowd  of people many of them special needs children at the Madison Square Garden.  How great  god is to have sent a leader that  shows such receptivity  and inclusiveness to all that  humanity.  It is overwhelming and so obviously right once   we see it.  Why is it so rare?  How can we bring that love and acceptance into our daily lives?

Pope Francis Speaks of aging

One of the surprising and touching aspects of the Pope's remarks to  the American  public has been  his emphasis on the  process of aging.  He mentioned the loneliness of the aged and also to day to Congress he reminds us of the wisdom of the aged.  One of the  most poignant  insights is his  stressing of the  mixed nature of all things and of all of us. This thread of the  ways we should examine polarity and refuse to see everything  as either black or white.  He directly  points to the inadequacy of seeing reality always as  a duality. In  calling for a  universal global ending  of the death penalty, he  focuses on the fact of its  finality--that it erases  the chance of change and  rehabilitation.  I believe that applies to the  experience of aging and dying--as long as  we are breathing we have  within us the potential to change, to repent, to seek forgiveness and like the Prodigal Son to  turn back  to the loving arms of our FATHER who is always watching for us  on the road with arms ready to embrace us.
There is a golden thread that weaves  through every remark of the Pope-- to be at the service of dialogue and peace.  We must not write anyone off, must not declare anyone  as finished or hopeless. Especially we must not numb our hearts to the tender  mercies that flow constantly from God to each and every one of us on this planet. Each of us so different in our  circumstances and our DNA but each of us united by our  human dignity and our participation in the divinity that we each carry in our immortal soul.

Making new neural pathways--DAY ONE

Just read  that it takes 45 days of daily activity to create a new neural pathway in our  brains.  Another good reason not to  stay in a negative  space with negative  thinking for too long lest it become habitual. I  know that this blog has not been habitual  for me.  I  feel as if the  content is not as focused and sometimes I am not  sure if there is any  interest  or coherence in  what I  am writing.
My other  Blog "BACK IN THE BUCKET" contains  thoughts, memories and experiences  connected with my life in Pawtucket--where I was born and lived  until I went to  graduate school in 1966.  In 2009 when  I returned to Pawtucket  to  care for my aunt  who lived there,  I  retired prematurely --or maybe just in the nick of time--from  my  professorship at the University of Cincinnati.  I found so much the same in Pawtucket and so  much  that had changed. And I wanted to  react to it all.

This  Blog "MAKE SOMETHING OF IT' comes from a different inspiration.  I  was suddenly  plunged into the world of retirement, care giving and decreased mobility.  I also  was facing  and seeing for the first time the limits of my own  energy and  possibilities.

I wanted to explore the experience of aging and to see  what the tasks were that occupy  me now and how they are shaping my identity. In other words I wondered what to make of this sudden emptying out of  all or most of the activities that had filled my  life before. Also I wanted to  discover what I could make of this new experience.  I want  to make something of it--but gradually I  have come to see that the experiences were making something of me.  I was changing and I was not in charge of the changes.  Then I began to understand that change is the nature of living and that  I have never been in charge of the changes.  But I had an illusion that I was in charge.  I have lost much of that illusion now.  I want to make sense of what is left and what  use  God and  society can  make of me and the millions like me--people who are now over 70 years old and  feeling their energy and certainties diminishing and their questions  expanding.
So for the next 45 day--starting  with this entry I will  explore the experience and the  reality of racing towards eternity.

Rememebering my last visit to my Uncle Irving

"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness." Paul II Corinthians

Today thinking of the Mowry family reunion that I attended  two weeks ago, I suddenly  began recalling the last days of  one son of Ida Mowry Jenckes, my Uncle Irving Jenckes  Dying of cancer, he was being cared for at home and I went to visit him.  When he learned that I was downstairs waiting to see him, he asked that I be brought upstairs to his bedside.  When I saw him, he was sitting reading his Bible which he did daily.  He asked my Aunt Winnie, his wife, to leave us alone and  then he began reading aloud to me from St Paul's  Letter to the Corinthians--the great  teaching about love:
"If I should speak with the tongue of  man and angels but have not  love, I am as  tinkling brass or clanging cymbals."  He would pause and ask me what each line meant.  He was very intense and his gaze searched my face fiercely. When  he got to the lines that begin--"When I was a child"  and conclude "Now that I am a man I put away childish things."He came to a full stop.
"Explain this to me," he demanded. He asked, " what are the childish things?"
I remember that I thought--why he reads this Bible every day, he is a  staunch Baptist--he must know the answers.
Then I thought again --maybe he is aware that now  I have a PhD.  and  he is asking me as a scholar to  interpret the lines. Such a self-flattering thought to calm my nerves--so I took up the old, worn Bible and read the passage aloud several times.  Then I treated it as if it were a problem  of literary criticism--some crux in  a sonnet by Shakespeare or a dense passage from Eliot's The Wasteland. I explained to Irving that the childish things could be the toys, the tantrums, the willful disobedience and defiance of youth.
I'll never forget how he looked at me and said simply,"No, try again." after I tried and he  repeated that direction three times, I put the Bible down and said "OK I give up." And he asked me directly  what childish things I had given up, discarded--and in the throes of my  prideful agnosticism I thought and I wanted to blurt out--
my rosaries, my scapulars, my novenas, my childish Faith--
I said nothing, just picked up the leather bound volume and resumed  reading. When I reached the  point about "seeing through a glass darkly",he stopped me again--"what is that glass and why darkly?"

Then I had another not so brilliant thought--oh, he is dying and he  is reading Corinthians for solace--. So I mustered up my Platonism and told him that the  fact that we have bodies and eyes of flesh permits us to see only material, earthly things but when we die and our spirits are free of the constraints of the  physical  then we will know the  spiritual truth of everything.
Well--he said wearily--that's a start..  He dropped his head back on the pillow and closed those eyes. Almost on cue my Aunt Winnie came into the room to say that I should go down for tea with my cousins, Mary, Grace and Roberta. And I must admit I was glad to leave that room.

It has taken me many years to see that interview less darkly and to understand that  Irving was not asking me  questions for his sake, he was doing it for my sake. He was bearing witness, using his scarce energy to  raise  questions in my mind about  FAITH, HOPE and LOVE.
He was  acting like that  notorious HOUND OF HEAVEN,  acting on behalf of that GOOD SHEPHERD,  seeking that lost  sheep that was his niece and turning me towards eternity.

"Whoever brought me here will have to take me home,"  Rumi