People ask: “How can you be so sick; you’re a strong person?” Or I am too positive of a person – how is it possible?
What if it is because of these very things that life has chosen me for a master class – a spiritual quest – not for the weak of heart? What if it’s because I’m a good student?
(Image and art mine)
This life a road –
the way prepared
signs to guide me,
and still, I get lost.
Construction, distraction,
disobedience – throw me off –
tendency to choose tougher routes,
broken down and been sidelined
And yet, the road still beckons,
invites progression, thrills.
A rolling stone gathers no moss,
my father liked to say, and so…
I push ahead, keep motoring,
trust the obstacles – more lessons –
will polish off the rough patches,
and eventually learn to shine.
A kidney stone, coupled with an infection has set me back five days – two trying to soldier through the pain, and three pursuing medical answers. Anyway, I’m on the mend, tired already of this foray into self-pity.
Tomorrow, I keep telling myself, is a new day.
(Image my own)
(This is found poem, previously posted on OneWoman’s Quest II)
Stories have power. Parents, teachers, public speakers, and therapists understand that the secret to engaging an audience or connecting with others is through illustration: storytelling.
I see it in the eyes of the my grandchildren, who love to hear tales of family history.
I’ve seen in the eyes of students, when recognition and understanding light up.
I’ve seen in in the eyes of audiences, who tear up or laugh at the telling of a relevant anecdote.
I’ve seen it in the eyes of the wounded trying to make sense of their past: the craving for a story that offers validation.
Imagine a world where we are absent from stories. This is a reality for many, whose race, ethnicity, or beliefs excludes them from discourse.
Chimamanda Adichie says it best in her Ted Talk: The Danger of a Single Story.
Isolated and incapacitated
I am prohibited from partaking
of the influx of information incessantly presented
consequently cut off
from prescribed expectations
dictating costuming and culture
external expressions of acceptance
are sorely missing, suggesting
an overall lack of self-worth.
Interestingly inverse to such conclusions
is the sudden contentment that arises
from escaping the mayhem
Internal relief overrides dictated performance
surrendering willingly to intrinsic motivation
and renewed self-acceptance.
(Originally written in 2014. Image my own)
The waters of my soul
are still this night
the harshness of day’s light
easing now
into quiet solitude.
I surrender to renewal
knowing that no matter
what tomorrow brings
I have peace within
to guide me.
(Image my own)
Intensity drops in,
early, before
I have a chance
to set the day in order –
puts me on the defensive.
She clings
encourages me to hold on
her sick creativity awake with impulsivity –
I am ailing
loyal
compelled to launder the linens
Desperately trying to find the corners
in the circular fitted sheet –
dependent on daily chores.
She wants to talk about feelings
but I am still numbed from sleep
from this never-ending illness,
from this perfectionist drive for optimism
She wants to embrace
hug me into submission
lecture me on the benefits
of organics and loose-leaf teas
and I am too busy avoiding her
to be grateful.
(Originally written in 2018, and edited here. Image my own)
Can we acknowledge the richness of our resources:
that which sustains and endures? Always looking for the next shiny thing,
craving the exotic, the surprising… pushing purpose, movement… toward what? Telling ourselves we want lifelong commitment, and then moving on… emotions depleted. How do we define standards, intuit and reassemble a frame, counsel a collective, when expectations, creeping and woven into consciousness, resemble oppression? Hope -as sold by patriarchal mindsets, striving to mutilate common sense – is useless to revive when society teaches us to blindly follow the unintelligible…
Full moon a warning –
reverence for mystery
not conspiracy
Society’s light
waning on the back of lies-
hopelessness surreal
Hate is born from fear
disinformation a tool –
We are being played.
Step back! Cautions moon
observe under a new light –
reconnect with love.
(This poem, derived from a dream, started as a haibun – prose followed by a haiku – but the haiku multiplied. Guess we will call it a variation on a haibun. Image my own.)
One Woman's Quest 