threads to be woven later...

Homage to Linda Pastan's "threads to be woven later".

my mother
who never forgave me
for looking like my father

my brother
who could make me laugh like no other
and frighten me like no other

my grandmother
whose finger's absent-mindedly flew
around the tatting shuttle between rounds of
feeding gossip to her sisters' bird-like open mouths

my dad
whose big bear hugs i'll never feel again
but need every day

my soul
the first year it went to Scotland
and fell in love with mull's amethyst thistles
brighter than the purple fog wrapped around
rocky green mountain tops

my son
at 42 who still has his boyish giggle
and that trickster gleam in his gray-green dark lashed eyes

my head
full of characters
who wake me in the dark morning hours
demanding i tell their story

my island
with its gypsy water flowing toward the ionian shore
as it moves from azure to marble blue to steel gray

my son
whose eight-year-old hand drew
an anatomically correct valentine heart
surrounded by words of love for his dad and me

my elven-year-old self
pretending no one could see me
as i basked in the magical aroma
of grandpa's old spice and cherry pipe tobacco
while i sat in his chair
reading his saturday evening posts


rebekah for the poplar grove muse

Melon Memories

I will never taste cantaloupe
without tasting the summers
you peeled for me and placed 
face-up on my china breakfast plate. 

Voices  - Naomi Shihab Nye

Sun-soaked cantaloupes smell of summer, rain, dew and earthy ridges. Melon memories make me smile.  They were a staple of our summer fare, along with corn on the cob and fresh sliced tomatoes still warm from the garden. I see my grandma holding the melon in one tiny hand and a scary-sharp knife in the other. She could peel and slice a melon in the time it took my mouth to start watering.

When I was a kid we called them musk melons. We ate them sliced and halved, rarely cubed. Cubing was an unnecessary delay. In my family we salted and peppered our melons, just enough to pull their ripe juiciness to the surface.

Cantaloupes were part of our beach fare. I loved letting the juice of each slice run down my chin and arms;  and then, after giving my little brother a threatening look that said stay away from my melon, I would race to the water, rinse off and come back for more.

Sometimes when my dad made my plate, he would lay a slice of melon on its side like a smile with two maraschino cherries for eyes and a miniature marshmallow for a nose.

Cantaloupe was one of the few things connected with my family that has only happy memories. We all loved melon and ate it with joy and gusto. Eating this luscious fruit with my family created alchemical moments where all pettiness and hurt was forgotten. And when we had finished every last bight, we were too full to care about anything except a nap. 

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

Learning How to Fly

(This is an excerpt from a much longer piece, Fly Away, Fly Away, that I wrote about my brother-in-law’s death in February.)

……Vanessa and Debbie in one vehicle, April and Crystal in another, Carl’s family left Hospice House after 8 p.m. and, despite wind, rain, and threat of tornado, hoped to be at Carl and Debbie’s house in Washington by 9:30. They drove as far as Breeden Road, a few miles south of Bloomington on Highway 45, and were stopped by downed utility poles and lines and tree limbs. So they returned to a friend’s house in Bloomington and spent the night there, then drove home Friday morning in the storm swept freshness of a new day. We wondered if Carl hadn’t been quite ready to let them go back home the night before. If he knew how empty the house would feel without him. If he was playing in those big winds that he’d always loved. You try to make meaning out of every little thing when loss and grief press your hearts to the ground. 

March 3, 2014

Yes, I guess Thursday, February 20^th, 2014, was, as Carl would say, a phenomenal day to die. And now here I am, with that momentous day behind me:  Carl’s fine obituary carefully cut from the paper and tucked away in Bill’s Bible; hours of visitation and hugging family members and old friends adding new images and color to our ongoing family tapestry; the many songs from Carl’s Celebration of Life still playing loops in my mind; the comfort food his home church provided still tasting like kindness in my mouth.

Bill and I have found ourselves in each other’s arms more often than usual this past week, eyes blurred with tears, hearts aching with love and loss. And just like Virginia and Pappy, George, Bob, Clarence, and even little David Lee, Carl will always be in our family circle—he meant too much to too many people to ever be forgotten. I picture him filled with amazement; his ethereal body athletic, strong; his wings big enough, powerful enough, to find his new place in the cosmos. Perhaps he’ll land with the Canada geese on the pond near his and Debbie’s house this summer.  Perhaps he’ll tumble and bounce in the trills of Whitney and Luke’s laughter through the days and years to come. Maybe he’ll be the brightest star in the Big Dipper, or the reddest red in the sunrise at Coco Beach where he loved to run and fly kites with his family.   As he said, Cancer isn’t a death sentence, it’s a life sentence, and I truly believe Carl Breeden’s life is eternal.

Learning How to Fly—Carl and the Breeden Road Incident

Was Carl playing, dancing in the heavens,

Watching the storm from above, from within?

Did he dip and climb and dip again on the high winds,

Smile to see his family name on the street sign,

Lose control for an instant and

Wreak havoc with utility lines and trees?

He was new at this flying business after all,

It might take him a few hours to get the hang of it—

Directing the power of those unwieldy wings

Was nothing like driving a semi truck.

But if he could drive a semi for lord knows how many years

Without an accident,

Surely he could master this new means of mobilization

Before he barged in where angels had no business treading.

Or perhaps he understood in some godlike way

That Deb wasn’t quite ready to return home without him.

Perhaps he could get her attention at Breeden Road,

Suggest a night of respite—

Away from hospice, away from home.

He hadn’t realized the full potential of his other worldly concern;

Hadn’t meant to twist those poles, snap that wire, break that limb.

He couldn’t get as close to Deb as he wanted to

And yet he could feel her love so strong

That it almost blew his feathers off;

Felt her competence, her woman power

As innate and relentless as the eye of the tornado he was riding.

Joy and enlightenment flooded his being like the raw force

Of that winter storm beneath his broad shouldered wings—

His family was going to be okay.

He let go his need to protect

And got on with the business of learning how to fly.

                                                                                                            Glenda Breeden 

Glenda for the Poplar Grove Muse                    

History of Tears

Every place I’ve ever visited has dropped a pebble in my pocket, history dripping like tears from their thick skins.

Everything I’ve Ever Known- Amy Christman

History of Tears                                                                                                                 

I have always known my mother’s tears, at times felt like I was drowning in them, tears that could appear on demand. Nobody could work up to a good cry like her.

Tears to persuade, to evoke sympathy, to beg us not to leave, but made us want to flee, tears that kept her permanent victimhood intact, tears that cried wolf once too often.

The second anniversary of her death was in February. I’ve had no tears for her- only hope in my heart that she is at long last at peace. Hope that her chaotic, fear-based way of being is no longer a part of her. I knew that death would be her only way to rest, to find peace and, hopefully, joy.  My wish for her is that there are no facades on the other side of the veil, no masks to wear. Let those spinning plates of appearance, pride, hurt, and secrets float off into the beautiful beyond.

I wish all good things for her. She deserves them after a lifetime of choices that wouldn’t allow her to trust the right people, choices that called her fears to her, choices that resulted in a rigid belief system.  A lifetime believing love was finite, that if those of us who loved her, and there were many, loved others there would never enough love for left for her. But there was always love, Mother. Always and still.

Rebekah for The Poplar Grove Muse

Untangling Peacocks

I’ve always been fascinated by the story of Abraham Lincoln and his Secretary of War, Edward Staunton, returning one summer’s eve to the Soldiers Home that Lincoln used as a sanctuary from the quagmire of Washington’s summer heat and the strains of waging a war, to find the peacocks that lived on the grounds of the Soldiers Home, trapped in the trees. In an attempt to domesticate the birds, strings had been attached to wooden blocks and tied to the their legs. This, however, did not stop them from flying into the trees and becoming entangled. Lincoln and Staunton worked together untangling the strings that trapped the poor birds. I’ve long thought this was a great metaphor for Lincoln’s work of untangling the complicated threads of a country divided against itself and weaving them into a tapestry of a reunited nation.

And now I find myself faced with the task of untangling my own peacocks and weaving the threads of truths and lies into the tapestry of family stories.  Lately, I’ve been hearing new stories and discovering lies that I had long held as truths. What to do when your foundation starts crumbling, when all along your perspective has been like looking through a fun house mirror?  Distorted.  Looking back at you with crazy eyes and gaping mouths that said how could you not see what was really happening?

So many tangled threads require lots of patience, letting go of that which no longer works for us. Acceptance of sitting with the unknowable.  How do I fill in the gaps?  Some family members squawk like Lincoln’s peacocks as I tug at the strings of lies and misrembered stories as I try to tease out the basics of our lives as a fractured family. Many of us tried to stay afloat in the alcoholic soup that our parents cooked up for daily consumption.  Some of us drowned in it.  Never made it out. Others of us learned my negative example and got way the hell away from all the chaos. We were survivors. Anxious to start our own family stories, hopefully, with happier endings, as we built up and out on our shaky foundations.  The universe brought me this now to untangle the threads of disjointed stories and weave them into our family tapestry.  It may not be pretty, but it will be authentic.

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

Offal

I have a mystery from my childhood that I go back to again and again.  I spent lots of time as a little girl at my grandparents' home in the Alquina, Indiana countryside. The air was filled with the humming of bees as they seduced the pollen from Grandma’s hollyhock bush and the constant thrumming of cicadas singing their hot summer song.  Everywhere I looked were fields of corn whose frizzy tassels sang a sibilant tune of their own. The old barn held many adventures for a little girl with a big imagination. Old tools with unimaginable purposes hung from the rafters, ladders to the hayloft begging to be climbed by a little girl with a big imagination, and the earthy smell still lingering from long ago horses that pulled the sleigh.  Seated on its cracked red leather seat, I picked up the reins that were draped over the side of the sleigh, jiggled the rusty sleigh bells still clinging to their brown leather strap, and giddy-upped to great adventures on the open road. Evenings, Grandpa and I sat on the porch swing- watching fireflies light up our night in nanoseconds.

While Grandpa was at work during the day, I mostly tried to stay out of Grandma’s way. Sometimes she kept me busy swatting flies and paying me a half a penny per fly. I guess I was on the honor system as to how many I actually killed. I really wanted that half a penny if it didn’t come out even, but she always rounded down, frugal lady that she was. If I had been good and not bothered her with lots of “silly questions,” she would sometimes reward me by allowing me to cross the road to get the mail. There was very little traffic on Rural Route 3, when I looked to my right I could see the neighboring farm down the road. When I looked to my left I could see the narrow ribbon of road uncurling up a small hill, dividing the cornfields. On one steaming hot afternoon with the promise of a frosty glass of hand squeezed lemonade if I went out for the mail, I ventured across the road to the mailbox.  And that’s when I saw something lying at the edge of the road in the gravel. It was about the size of goose egg and shaped like a capsule. The thing was enclosed in a membrane, the color a combination of brownish-red and bruised purple. I tapped it with the toe of my sneaker. Nothing. I looked around for a road kill that it might have been squeezed out of. Nothing. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I knew I’d better check the mail box and get back to the house before Grandma realized I was taking a long time. For some reason I wanted to keep my discovery to myself, like it was something I shouldn’t have seen. It was my secret find to ponder. I looked in the mailbox and among some bills was a letter from Grandma’s sister Grace. Good. That would keep her busy for a while and I might be able to sneak back across the road and gaze at my find.

After the letter was delivered and my lemonade was gulped down, I left Grandma fanning herself at the kitchen table reading her letter from Aunt Grace. I quietly closed the screen door in the living room and hurried to the gate. It creaked when I opened it, but Grandma’s hearing wasn’t very good so I wasn’t too worried. No cars. I ran across the road. Still there. Glistening in the sun. It seemed to be swelling up. Whatever was contained within straining at that thin membrane. I heard the screen door slam. Grandma shouted at me to get back across the road. When she asked what I was doing out there, I told her I thought I had dropped something. I’m not sure she bought it, but she was cooking dinner and wanted me to set the table. When Grandpa got home, I was tempted to show my find to him. Something stopped me. I never told anyone. I still don’t know why. 

I think it has to do with living in a family with secrets. We had apocryphal stories like other families, but we were never allowed to ask questions so the stories behind the stories were never told. There was always something missing, something always lurking in shadow. Maybe that’s why I was so drawn to this find in the road. It was my secret, not someone else’s. I didn’t ever have to tell anyone if I didn’t want to. Then I could be just like every one else in my family.

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse