Susan's Thursday morning note October 10, 2024 ~ Australian Aborignal "Walk-About" with quotes on nature.
Good morning! My angel of dawn is standing breathless outside my window handing again her faithful gift - a priceless jewel of another day. She stands breathless from her view of fields being harvested around. She stands breathless from her view of the bright stars not yet disappearing above. She stands breathless from the beauty in the intense silence given before the birds arrive on her stage. Our gift. Her priceless jewel of another morning.
I am just in the midst of reading The Olive Farm: A Memoir of Life, Love and Olive Oil in the South of France by Carol Drinkwater who plays the wife of James Herriott, the main character in the book and DVD series All Creatures Great and Small on a veterinary practice located in England. This book was written as a memoir of her purchase and "giving rebirth" to a small olive vineyard and home in southern France. I was enamored by her analogy to bring her old "new" home back to life with a comparison to Australian's aboriginal walkabout – where there is continual life given to creation generation after generation as aboriginals "sing their environments back into existence." Following is her description of turning her property back into a vibrant home.
…is slowly coming back to life. After neglect, the house is waking up. Its essence is reemerging. Shapes, colors, aspects of light are speaking to us…It is widely known that the Australian aboriginals go walkabout, but what I did not know until I crossed the world to work there was that one of the purposes of their walkabouts is to sing nature back into existence. I find that such an enchanting image. To walk a land every so often and sing the mountains, the rivers, streams, caves, animals, insects, nature in all its diverse magnificence, back into existence. I equate that image with what we are attempting to achieve here. It – sorry, but I see the house as she, was rented out for many years. Bills were unpaid, the fabric of the building has been left to ruin, its fruits have dropped from the trees and lie rotting. The plants, every bush and shrub, are being strangled. The house has lost its voice. Or rather, its voice has gone unheard.
In my understanding of the aboriginal walkabout – and I am not saying that this is the meaning of the image, it is merely my interpretation of it – nature and its every mountain, hill, waterfall, ant nest and pathway have a voice. To stand at any moment in front of the miracle of any particle of nature and to listen, truly listen, is to hear its song. To hear its song is to allow it to sing. That is how I understand "singing a place back into existence."
Here are a few more quotes and a poem on the beauty of our creation. Not only on our giving life as we sing to gifts from God, but taking the gifts from Him and learning from observation.
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness.” Michelangelo
“Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
as the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
as dry fields weep with rain.” Ute prayer
Fall. The word in itself brings feeling. Quiet. Beauty. Emptiness. Possible loneliness. Beautiful moon. Bright stars. Wispy clouds from airplanes bright at midnight. Fall. Grief for some knowing winter is coming for. Energy breathing the crisp clean air for others. Shorter days. Home. Solitude. Family. Prayer. Rebirth. We have been given the gift of today. We will have a chance to write our epitaph tonight of how we use the moments today. Regardless of our personal circumstances we are all given this day. A gift.
Will our writing tonight be worth the print? Will we make decisions that honor our Creator and ourselves? One chance. Let's rise, being thankful for the moments. Look into children's eyes. Sing inwardly to creation. Time. Moving so quickly. We won't get back today. How will we use our moments? Our choice. Looking back and not making same mistakes, looking forward and setting goals, and making the moments at hand worthy of writing tonight. Thank you for letting me type for you. Thank you for all of your encouragement and business. If you only knew what you caring about the store means….more than you'll ever know. Have a great week – make your life better than any day you've lived in the past. Susan
Latin for this week:
Renascibilatas – a new birth, regeneration
canto, cantare – sing
est omnis terra gloria eius – the whole earth is full of His glory
Works Cited:
Drinkwater, Carol. The Olive Farm: A Memoir of Life, Love and Olive Oil in the South of France. 2001. New York. Penguin Putnam.
Blog
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Creation “Singing a place back into existence” Love of nature. “The Olive Farm” by Carol Drinkwater (Oct. 2024)
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Prayer. Heaven. Goodness. Forgiveness. “The Lamplighter” by Maria Cummins (September 2024)
Susan's Thursday morning note September 26, 2024 The Lamplighter by Maria Cummins Prayer, Heaven, Goodness, Forgiveness
Good morning! Silence except clicking of the keyboard. Deep black behind the curtains. My angel of dawn peering with a small lantern through the window not having to work very hard to encourage me to enter this beautiful fall day. An old worn book open beside me with friends inside. The Lamplighter by Maria Cummins. There is an inscription in the front from a teacher to her student, published originally in 1854. This book was the second best seller of the 19th century behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin.I was enamored since page one years ago, this being one of the few books that as you read you are thinking, “I wish this one never ended and was always by my bed stand.” Here are some of the lines I’ve underlined for you of a little orphaned girl’s first years. The book continues into her maturity into adulthood.“…had she had a mother, those friendly eyes would have found something in her to praise. But the poor little thing was told, a dozen times a-day, that she was the worst-looking child in the world, and the worst-behaved. No one loved her, and she loved no one; no one tried to make her happy, or cared whether she was so. She was but eight years old, and alone in the world. She loved to watch for the coming of the old man who lit the street-lamp in front of the house where she lived; to see his bright torch flicker in the wind; and then when he so quickly ran up his ladder, lit the lamp, and made the place cheerful, a gleam of joy was shed on a little desolate heart, to which gladness was a stranger; and though he had never seemed to see, and had never spoken to her, she felt, as she watched for the old lamp-lighter, as if he were a friend.”(scene later in the evening after being put into garret for an accidental spill of milk)……”She wept until she was exhausted; and then gradually she became still. By-and-by she took her hands from her face, clasped them together convulsively, and looked up at a little glazed window near the bed. It was but three panes of glass unevenly stuck together. There was no moon; but as Gerty looked up, she saw shining upon her one bright star. She thought she had never seen anything half so beautiful. She had often been out of doors when the sky was full of stars, and had not noticed them much; but this one, all alone, so large, so bright, and yet so soft and pleasant-looking, seemed to speak to her; to say, “Gerty! Gerty! poor little Gerty!” She thought it seemed like a kind face, such as she had a long time ago seen or dreamt about. Suddenly she asked herself, “Who lit it? Somebody lit it! Some good person, I know. Oh! how could he get up so high? And Gerty fell asleep, wondering who lit the star.”Gerty was later kicked out of her home and the lamplighter had witnessed the beating and found the young child alone on the street. Not knowing what to do, he took her home for the evening. This scene is after he gave her his own meager meal, warm milk, and put her into his bed. “Tears are in Trueman Flint’s eyes; he lays his great head on the pillow and draws Gerty’s little face close to his; at the same time smoothing her long, uncombed hair with his hand. He, too, is thinking aloud – what does he say? “Catch you! – no, she shan’t! Stay with me! – so you shall, I promise you, poor little birdie! All alone in this big world – and so am I. Please God, we’ll bide together.”Gerty is then taught by other main characters her first lessons on the concept of God, prayer, heaven, goodness, forgiveness. She had never heard of the concept of God, prayer, heaven. After a scene which the lamplighter, True, and a young boy explaining in his childish, clear description the main attributes of God, the following scene takes place with Gerty alone in her room. “All the information that Gerty could gain amounted to the knowledge of these facts: that God was in heaven: that His power was great; and that people were made better by prayer. But her mind was so intent upon the subject, that the thought even of sleeping in her new room could not efface it. After she had gone to bed…she lay for a long time with her eyes wide open. Just at the foot of the bed was the window. The sky was bright with stars; and they revived her old wonder and curiosity as to the Author of such distant and brilliant lights. As she gazed, there darted through her mind a thought, “God lit them! Oh, how great He must be! But a child might pray to Him!” She rose from her little bed, approached the window, and falling on her knees and clasping her hands precisely in the attitude of Samuel, she looked up to heaven. She spoke no word, but her eyes glistened with a tear that stood in each. Was not each tear a prayer? She breathed no petition, but she longed for God and virtue. Was not that very wish a prayer? Her little uplifted heart throbbed vehemently. Was not each throb a prayer? And did not God in heaven, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, hear and accept that first homage of a little, untaught child: and did it not call a blessing down?”What a beautiful scene. There is something so comforting in seeing the little hands of a child folded in earnest prayer. Thank you so much for letting me write for you again today. And, thank you always for the great books you’re bringing in for our used bookstore. If you only knew how many want to end up in my car that I try to not make eye contact with! Tonight we will have another chance to write on our epitaph…write on the gift of the moments today. Will we have something worthy to write? Of our thoughts, our mindset, our reflection, our reading, our choices for what we talk about? Regardless of if it’s an easy time of life, or difficult, we are given the gift of today. Of watching the earth given rest during these upcoming cold months. We are all given this gift. As an extra beauty to our day, or as a sign to help cope if all seems bleak.We are here…so what will we do with this gift called time and life? And, the beauty of this is even when we don’t notice the gift…we will have the opportunity to start again with the chance to notice. To notice that our angel of dawn arrived in each home offering the chance to look to the heavens today and to the stars tonight. To realize they are lit by our Creator who lit the stars for us.Thank you for letting me again enter your Thursday. Thank you for helping us have our beautiful store. I hope I’m there when you come by, but if I’m not, know that I hope you experience a reprieve from your reality, that you can relax, and that you leave the store feeling a little bit better than when you entered our world. SusanLatin for this week: astra - star Deus lux Mea - God is my light. Aduro (adustum) - To set fire to, burn, singe, kindle, light Adspicit lucem in calestis - Seeking light in heaven. Works Cited: Cummins, Maria. The Lamplighter. Chicago. M.A. Donohue & Co. Undated Edition. (Originally published in 1854).
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Hour glass analogy to handling life. Focusing on today, not past or tomorrow. Sir William Osler and Dr. James Gordon (September 2024)
Susan's Thursday morning note September 5, 2024 Moments of time - imagining an hour glass. Leaving yesterday behind, not worrying about tomorrow. Sir William Osler, Yale 1913 Dr. James Gordon, 1944A quiet morning. Only company are little squirrels whose mothers have pushed them out of their nests already this morning to get their exercise. Only sight steam from my coffee and sun wanting to make her appearance. My angel of dawn peering through my curtains encouraging me to again enter her priceless gift of the moments handed to me today. I was able to read some excerpts this week on a chapter entitled “Peace of Heart and Mind” collected in Light from Many Lamps. Below are two short writings that stayed in my mind. On keeping our focus on what is before us each day, each moment. On disciplining our minds to not be affected by what has happened in the past or what may happen in the future.
Gaining Emotional Poise by Dr. James Gordon Gilkey, 1944
Most of us think ourselves as standing wearily and helplessly at the center of a circle bristling with tasks, burdens, problems, annoyance, and responsibilities which are rushing in upon us. At every moment we have a dozen different things to do, a dozen problems to solve, a dozen strains to endure. We see ourselves as overdriven, overburdened, overtired. This is a common mental picture and it is totally false. No one of us, however crowded his life, has such an existence. What is the true picture of your life? Imagine that there is an hour glass on your desk. Connecting the bowl at the top with the bowl at the bottom is a tube so thin that only one grain of sand can pass through it at a time. That is the true picture of your life, even on a super busy day, The crowded hours come to you always one moment at a time. That is the only way they can come. The day may bring many tasks, many problems, strains, but invariably they come in single file. You want to gain emotional poise? Remember the hourglass, the grains of sand dropping one by one.
“Way of Life” Sir William Osler, Yale address, 1913 Excerpt from lecture on “fencing in the moment of today” – leaving yesterday & not adding tomorrow’s worries I stood on the bridge of one of the great liners, ploughing the ocean at 25 knots. “She is alive,” said my companion, “in every plate; a huge monster with brain and nerves, an immense stomach, a wonderful heart and lungs, and a splendid system of locomotion.” Just at that moment a signal sounded, and all over the ship the water-tight compartment were closed…Now each one of you is a much more marvelous organization than the great liner, and bound on a longer voyage. What I urge is that you can learn to control the machinery as to live with “day-tight compartments” as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Get on the bridge and see that at least the great bulkheads are in working order. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the past – the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future – the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe – safe for today. Shut off the past. “Let the dead past bury its dead.” So easy to say, so hard to realize. The truth is the past haunts us like a shadow. To disregard it is not easy. Shut out the yesterdays. The petty annoyances, the real and fancied slights, the trivial mistakes, the disappointments, the sins, the sorrows, even the joys – bury them deep in the oblivion of each night. Ah! but it is just then that to so many of us the ghosts of the past, come in troops, and pry open the eyelids, each presenting a sin, a sorrow, a regret. Bad enough in the old and seasoned, in the young these demons of the past sins may be a terrible affliction, and in bitterness of heart many a one cries with Eugene Aram, “Oh God! Could I so close my mind, and clasp it with a clasp.” As a vaccine against all morbid poisons left in the system by the infections of yesterday, I offer “a way of life.” “Undress,” as George Herbert says, “your soul at night,” not by self-examination, but by shedding, as you do your garments, the daily sins whether of omission or of commission, and you will wake a free man, with a new life. To look back, except on rare occasions for stock-taking, is to risk the fate of Lot’s wife. Many a man is handicapped in his course by a cursed combination of retro- and intro-spection, the mistakes of yesterday paralyzing the efforts of today, the worries of the past hugged to his destruction, and the worm Regret allowed to canker the very heart of his life. To die daily, after the manner of St. Paul, who makes each day the epitome of life.
The load of tomorrow added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past...Waste not energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. Shut those, then, the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of a life of Day-Tight Compartments. Do not be discouraged – like every other habit, the acquisition takes time, and the way is one you must find for yourselves. I can only give general directions and encouragement, in the hope that while the green years are on your heads, you may have the courage to persist.Misc. Quotes on time. On living each day as a gift.
Trouble not thyself by pondering life in its entirety. Strive not to comprehend in one view the nature and number of burdens that, belike, will fall to thy share. Rather, as each occasion arises in the present put this question to thyself: “Where lies the unbearable, unendurable part of this task?” Confession will put thee to the blush. Next recall to mind that neither past nor future can weigh thee down, only the present. And the present will shrink to littleness if thou but set it apart, assign it its boundaries, and then ask thy mind if it avail not to bear even this. Marcus Aurelius
Some there are that torment themselves afresh with the memory of what is past; others, again, afflict themselves with the apprehension of evils to come; and very ridiculously both, for the one does not now concern us, and the other not yet…One should count each day a separate life. Seneca
As I got older I became aware of the folly of this perpetual reaching after the future, and of drawing from tomorrow, and from tomorrow only, a reason for the joyfulness of today. I learned, when alas! it was almost too late, to live each moment as it passed over my head. William Hale White
Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen. James Russell Lowell
It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is is when tomorrow’s burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this; it is your own doing, not God’s. He begs you to leave the future to Him, and mind the present. George MacDonald
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Regret nothing. Not even the sins and failures. When a man views Earth’s wonders from some mountain height he does not spend his time dwelling on the stones and stumbles, the faints and failures, that marked his upward path. So with you. Breathe in the rich blessings of each new day – forget all that lies behind you. Man is so made that he can carry the weight of twenty-four hours, no more. Directly he weighs down with the years behind, and the days ahead, his back breaks. I have promised to help you with the burden of today only, the past I have taken from you and if you, foolish hearts, choose to gather again that burden and bear it, then, indeed, you mock Me to expect Me to share it. For weal or woe each day is ended. What remains to be lived, the coming twenty-four hours, you must face as you awake. A man on a march on Earth carries only what he needs for that march. Would you pity him if you saw him bearing too the overwhelming weight of the worn-out shoes and uniforms of past marches and years? And yet, in the mental and spiritual life, man does these things. Small wonder My poor world is heartsick and warty. Not so must you act. AJ Russell, God Calling
Again, we have been given a gift from the angel at our door this morning. The angel of dawn. The gift of today. I already hear the birds welcoming me into their world with their songs. They seem to always remember the gift of this promise from Ps. 121. I look up to the hills where my help comes from. Beautiful life. Always remember to find the little gifts of the day. The beatitude states, Blessed are the children, for they see God. They see God because they see the beauty in the smallest gifts from God. The light dancing on my floor where the sun is shining through my curtain. A gift for today. The birds that never stop singing. Regardless of their personal stories they still sing. A gift for today. My perfect second cup of coffee. A gift for today. The thought of a true friend’s smile yesterday. A gift for today. Little one just now greeting the day with his small hand on his purring friend. Tonight we have the chance to write in stone our epitaph for the moments that go through our hourglass today. Not to write anything about yesterday or tomorrow. But, about the next few hours. Can we live the day worthy to have something worth inscribing tonight? Thank you for letting me enter your Thursday. For caring about our store. For your friendship. If you cannot come personally, here is my smile and cup of coffee imagined in my mind for you! Susan
Latin for this week: Tabula rasa – clean slate (referring to someone not affected by past experiences) Sollicitudo – concern, anxiety, solicitude, worry carpe diem – seize the day (Horace, 1st century) appreciator – to show appreciation caelitus mihi vires – My strength is from heaven Works Cited: Watson, Lillian Eichler, Editor. Light from Many Lamps: A Treasury of Inspiration. New York. Simon & Schuster. 1951.
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Changes. Letting go. Finding who we are. Regrets. Children growing & leaving home. (Gift of Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison) (August 2024)
Susan's Thursday Morning Note August 15, 2024 Changes. Letting go. Finding who we are. Regrets. Children growing & leaving home. Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison
Good morning! The only sounds I hear are silence, clicking of keys, and a lonely late summer cricket joining the scene. Stars still shining. Relativity of time. If I could somehow hold the clock to this stillness and stars for another hour in the seeming loss of time, rather than five more minutes until light. I know if I train my mind to look at the good of morning in only a few minutes the birds will start their off-tune morning warm-ups. The cricket will strengthen his song, and the mother squirrel will be kicking her energetic early risers out of their trees to run around and give me my morning movie scene. Constant changes already behind the curtain of darkness almost making their debut. Constant changes for what my own script is for life on this side of the curtain.
This week I reread words from a book towards the bottom of my bookshelf. The jacket I see in the mornings and remember the words inside my mind. Following are words written years ago when I first read this book. In this author’s case – change with her children entering adolescence, then leaving home. Change on who she is…finding life after “loss”. The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother’s Memoir by Katrina Kenison. I have found her to write similarly to Anne Lindbergh, but adding more personal stories to go along with her thoughts on changes, letting go, finding who we are. We are all dealing with change. Constantly. I have often thought of our relationships and our own personal selves being like a pot of soup. We begin as the ingredients first placed into the large pot. We simmer…we change…life is added to the ingredients. Change. Birth. Death. Fun. Pain. Disappointments. Mistakes. Memories. Contentment. Excitement. Staleness. Elation. Grief. Growth. Change. Constant change. And because of the constant change of ingredients the soup changes. The taste changes. The essential elements are the same. Who we are. But we are never the same and we can never find who we used to be, for once ingredients have been added, they cannot be removed. The soup is made up of what is now blended in. So who are we? We are still who we were in our youth, but not that person. To say we are finding ourselves is not possible – for we are only who we are today, with what has made us who we are today…..the soup. Not in the least spoiled, just changed in chemistry. And changed chemistry then causes changed relationships. Friendships. Marriage. Parent/child. We all are constantly changing what is in the pot. And when we find that the ingredients are causing staleness or unpleasantness, then we have a choice….let who we are…and who we are blended with go bad….or continue to find ingredients that change the taste, but still have the beauty of the initial recipe. I’ve thought of that analogy for years & ready to finally put it into print to go along with what I’ve underlined so far in this book. I hope you find her thoughts to be worth thinking about as I have…
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. Henri Bergson
Change, it is said, always goes hand in hand with opportunity. Growing older, I begin to see that finding fulfillment in this next stage of life will demand a kind of surrender that seems beyond me now, a new way of being and caring that I can barely begin to imagine. I suspect I have a lot to learn about letting go.
Instead of mourning the passage of time, I want to live with a sense of abundance in the here and now, knowing that what we have is exactly enough…a gift can only be received with an open hand, and in order to find out what life was about to offer us, we would first have to release our hold on what was already over.
It occurs to me that perhaps I don’t have to push at life quite so hard after all, that sometimes the best thing we can do is allow our lives simply to take us where we need to go. The truth is, I don’t have any idea what goals I should be focusing on or how I ought to compose my life at this juncture…All I can really do is give in to the moment at hand – then pause, consider, and take one more step forward into the unknown.
On finding our “new identities” once life changes.
But as all the identities I worked so hard to construct over the years begin to slough away, I feel myself reconnecting with my own quiet center. It is as if I am, at last, catching a glimpse of myself not as I might wish to be, but as I am.
Inside, the child I used to be is still alive, as ardent and eager as ever. The little girl who loved swimming in lakes, eating three kinds of ice cream at once, and buying new shoes is still, amazingly, me. Yet the lines in my face, my softening belly, the new, spidery red veins in my legs, give no hint of her existence. What is visible instead, I suppose, is the humility bestowed by marriage, pregnancies and parenthood, time and experience, sadness and joy, unrealized dreams and hard-won understanding. I’m still shocked, sometimes, when I catch sight of this person, this new-old me, in a mirror. Looking at recent photographs, I have wondered lately, Where did I go? Yet just beneath the surface of the middle-aged woman, rarely glimpsed now, the girl within still dances, an inner, secret self whose existence sometimes surprises me. She is as real as the outer me, still patiently awaiting my acceptance and recognition.
…it seems I am peeling away not only paint, but the layers of my own carefully constructed person. Until at last I myself am stripped, taken all the way back to a being I barely remember, a person who seems surprisingly young and hopeful and tender. I make room for her. And then, without judgment for a change, I take a long frank look at a person I haven’t seen in a while. Me.
Regrets followed by realization of opportunities: There are many things I dreamed of once that I know now I’ll never do. So many opportunities I missed, situations I failed to grasp, mistakes I made that will never really be righted. I carry some baggage, old ratty parcels packed with disappointment and regret. I’ve wasted too much time worrying, backsliding into fear, when I could have loved and lived more boldly. I’ve skimmed the surface of life when I could have been diving deep.
Yet there are also qualities of mind and heart in me that I am grateful for. I recognize, emerging slowly form beneath the layers, the optimism than has always made me me. My faith in other people, my eagerness to trust their motives an extend the benefit of the doubt. The sense of wonder that dawns as fresh in me each day as morning. The idealism that is both my nature and my gift. The creation of self, it seems, even at this late stage of the game, is more a process than a project, more about opening and allowing than forcing and doing. Perhaps it does not have to be such hard work after all.
…Real life is not going to begin when we move into our own house at long last, or when I figure out what to do with myself, or when we’re out of debt…Real life is now.
None of this was ever part of the plan, but life so rarely unfolds according to plan. Real life is just where we are, in this moment, and the only mistake we’ve made so far has been not to pause long enough or often enough to realize that even this odd in-between time is precious, fleeting, and worthy of our attention.
Being alive, it seems, means learning to bear the weight of the passing of all things. It means finding a way to lightly hold all the places we’ve loved and left anyway, all the moments and days and years that have already been lived and lost to memory, even as we live on in the here and now, knowing full well that this moment, too, is already gone. It means, always, allowing for the hard truth of endings. It means, too, keeping faith in beginnings.
When her children finally left home: (She discusses high school/college…but I find the same rings true as my own children move into new stages…)
I’ve known for months now that the hardest part of letting go, at least for me, is not just about my grown children leaving home, emotional and momentous as that milestone will be. The real challenge is how to relinquish with serenity the role I’ve cherished for so long, to stop identifying myself so completely with motherhood and allow for a new, more mature self to be born….I was programmed for nurturing. After years of striving, caring, trying so diligently to create a family life, to make a home, to tend our hearth, the end of all that labor is in plain sight…how I’ve poured myself into the work of raising children…I must remind myself these days that life is what it is, wonderful and heartrending all at once…
“Mend the part of the world that is within your reach,” Dr. Estes writes….I am so often tempted to cast a wide net, to get overly invested – in my children’s lives, in the way things ought to be, in my goals and their outcomes – that I end up not doing the small tasks right in front of me really beautifully, joyfully, or well. Now, life is shifting. And all I really need to do is welcome the change and shift along with it. How glad I would be to move through all these transitions and challenges with a lighter heart. Perhaps it really is as simple as those words: “Mend the part of the world that’s within your reach.” It’s all I can hope to do anyway. It may just turn out to be enough.
How gracefully will I be able to step aside and allow them to become the adults they are meant to be. For the first time, I’m beginning to think I can do it. For it seems that there is a road map to guide me on this part of life’s journey after all. The landscape is drawn in bold, beautiful colors by all the valiant, loving women who have preceded me into this unfamiliar country called surrender. If I listen carefully, I can hear them calling back to me. “Let go,” they say. “Let go, let go, let go. And then, trust.”
So our “soup” changes….what we are cooking. Shall we simmer awhile to let some things go, thereby finding who we now are? Getting down the the basic ingredients…the stock. Our soul. The unchanging creation God made? Do we need to add? Do we need to read, learn, set goals? Do we need to do nothing? The soup will take on flavor after flavor after flavor. Constant collaboration with the chef. The chef is us. I can not cook literally, but I can work on my inner self. My soul. My pure stock. That others may then take a part of the stock of who I am and use what I give to their advantage…..today. What we know we have. This moment.
What is in our reach? Mend the part of the world that is within your reach. Our prayers are within their reach. That’s what we can do. Make today count. Work on your pot of soup…..if you notice stagnant or unpleasant consistencies do something about it…change…let go….work hard. Look others in the eyes. Be kind. That’s within our abilities. Thank you for letting me type for you. Have a day that is worth writing on your epitaph tonight. Even if what you write is that you were privileged with “an ordinary day”. Susan
Latin for this week: chef de cuisine, the "chief" or "head" of a kitchen multum in parvo – All things change, and we change with them. Work Cited: Kenison, Katrina. The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother’s Memoir. New York. Hachette. 2010.
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Quotes by Persian poet Hafez(1310-1390) “A singing bird will come…” Misc. quotes on faith (August 2024)
Susan's Thursday morning note - August 1, 2024 “A singing bird will come...” Quotes by Hafez and quotes on faithGood morning. Sound of silence and purring mixed. Smells of coffee. Thoughts trying to make their way to my fingertips. If I look outside long enough to focus into the blackness I can see the stars. So distant. Little dots giving me a glance at heaven on the other side. Encouraging me to keep an eternal perspective as I enter this day. Peering through the blackness I can see the eyes of my angel. My angel of dawn. Again she awoke before me to give me her gift. Her gift of faithfulness. Always there. Always. If you had the ability to hide inside a book this week and listen to conversations you would have heard an older woman tell me a quote she has kept her entire life in her mind that she can hear her mother telling her. A Chinese proverb that has stayed in my mind since she walked out of the store. “If you keep a green bough in your heart, the singing bird will come.” One sentence from her that only spanned a moment in time. The gift of her proverb now in my thoughts for a lifetime. Her quote reminded me of words by a Persian poet, Hafez, who lived from 1310-1390. Encouragement in his words to develop a mental ability to see good and beauty.
“And still, after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, “You owe Me.” Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.”
“Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.”
“Build a house for men and birds. Sit with them and play music. For a day, for just one day, talk about that which disturbs no one and brings some peace, my friend, into your beautiful eyes.”
“I once asked a bird, how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness? The bird responded, ‘love lifts me.”
“Once a young woman said to me, “Hafiz, what is the sign of someone who knows God?” I became very quiet, and looked deep into her eyes, then replied, “My dear, they have dropped the knife. Someone who knows God has dropped the cruel knife that most so often use upon their tender self and others.”
“Ever since happiness heard your name it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”
“This place where you are right now God circled on a map for you.”
“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.”
“Be kind to your sleeping heart. Take it out in the vast field of light and let it breathe.”
Again. My new Chinese proverb resonating in my mind. “If you keep a green bough in your heart, the singing bird will come.” Faith. Another word even stronger than hope. This word then brings to mind other quotes I’ve loved on faith. On knowing the singing bird will come, not hoping so.
“Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.” Rabindranoth Tagore (1861-1914 1st non-European to win the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature)
“He who has faith has an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.” B.C. Forbes (1880-1954, founder of Forbes Magazine)
“Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens.” J.R.R. Tolkein
“Be like that bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.” Victor Hugo
My Faith is larger than the Hills - So when the Hills decay My Faith must take the Purple Wheel To show the Sun the way. ‘Tis first He steps upon the Vane And then – upon the Hill And then abroad the World He go To do His Golden Will. And if His Yellow feet should miss The Bird would not arise The Flowers would slumber on their Stemps No Bells have Paradise. How dare I, therefore, stint a faith On which so vast depends Lest Firmament should fail for me The Rivet in the Bands. Emily Dickinson 1863The singing bird WILL come. What a beautiful truth. As constant as the word SPRING. Always arriving. Birds. Buds. Not just the word hope. The word faith. Truth. Reality. Singing birds. Spring. The sand in our timers constantly flowing. The sand in little infant timers already constantly flowing. Unceasing. Will we make a conscious effort to stop a grain mentally today as it passes through? Some sand grains will be so course. Some so fine and make us feel fragile. But amidst all of these grains there are small pieces of sand flowing through that if we stop and look and specific granules we will see the beautiful ones. The sand that keeps it all flowing. That keeps our life beautiful. The grains that are our birds. The grains that our buds. The grains that include the eyes of those we will see today. The grains of sand that hold laughter. The grains of sand that hold tears. The grains. All flowing making up our song. Our beautiful song called life. Susan
Latin for this week: ramus - branch, bough, twig, spray, arbor thallus – stalk, bough, branch palmes – branch, bough cantus – a singing bird-song -
Quotes on Appreciating TODAY “The Traveler” always traveling to find happiness by Daren Simkin (July 2024)
Susan's Thursday note July 25, 2024 The Traveler by Daren Simkin (A Traveler packing up "time" constantly searching for true happiness) Quotes on living for today not always waiting for tomorrow.Good morning! Silence this morning. Still trees. A few moments of coolness to pretend it’s fall before heat enters the scene. My angel of dawn faithfully shows her kind face holding a small rose. Encouraging me to notice the little flowers by the side of the road today. Encouraging me to hear the little birds working on their choral lessons this morning. Beauty. Always beauty if we only take a few moments to notice.
I pull again a favorite from my shelves for us all to think on today. The Traveler by Daren Simkin. This is a little book about a young boy that decides to pack up his “time” and travel until he finds true happiness. No matter where he ends up in his travels (each location seemingly “perfect” at first) he finds something wrong. Something that doesn’t provide him with complete happiness. On his pursuit for perfect life, he walks and walks, sleeps and sleeps, with his suitcase full of his packed time at his side, always believing that this suitcase would continue holding “time” for him until he opened it when he found the perfect life.
“My time is safe in my suitcase, I can never go wrong – Soon I’ll find something perfect to spend it all on…” Nearing the end of the fable he finds himself an old man, lonely. He comes back (after circling the earth) to his original home, his original friends, now old. “I have decided to spend my time: my decades, my years, my months, my weeks, and my days, my hours, my minutes, and my seconds, too. I am ready to spend them all, and I want to spend them at home, with friends. With you.”
He opens the suitcase that he lugged his entire life believing that he will find his entire time that he began with in the suitcase. Only one month fell out to the ground. He searched everywhere – where were his decades, his years? He doesn’t understand. He then realizes to save time was an impossible pursuit. He realizes that he only has one month left to his life. With the diagnosis of death so soon, with time so wasted searching for perfect relationships, perfect surroundings, perfect work scenarios, he takes on the final month of his life. “Come sit next to me, said his friend. He spends his final month listening to his friends discussing marvelous things they experienced in their lives, realizing he has no such memories.”
The final question in the fable, “Does anyone know what life would be like if you kept all your time?” Only the traveler knew this answer, and he discussed the emptiness of his travels searching for perfect happiness. He spent his last month surrounded by his friends. Loved. Not in an environment of all perfection, but worth savoring and appreciating.
Below are quotes on living for the day…not the future. Being aware of what we do have, not concentrating wholly on our losses or what we never received for this lifetime. On finding meaning in our daily lives. I hope these inspire you as they have me.
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It has been well said that no person ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow’s burden is added to the burdens of today that the weight is more than a person can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourself so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God’s. He begs that the weight is more than a person can bear. Never load yourselves, so, my friends. If you find yourself so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God’s. He begs you to leave the future to Him and mind the present. George MacDonald
To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done – this is how I desire to waste wisely my days. Thomas Dekker 1570-1671
Would’st shape a noble life?
Then cast No backward glances toward the past,
And though somewhat be lost and gone,
yet do thou act as one new-born;
What each day needs, that shalt thou ask,
Each day will set its proper tasks. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I expect to pass through the world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness or abilities that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. William Allen Penn
Live for today. Multitudes of people have failed to live for today…What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely, because only the future has intrigued them. William Allen Penn
You wake up in the morning, and lo! Your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life. It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive. Arnold Bennett
I have walked with people whose eyes are full of light but who see nothing in sea or sky, nothing in city streets, nothing in books. It were far better to sail forever in the night of blindness with sense, and feeling, and mind, than to be content with the mere act of seeing. The only lightless dark is the night of darkness in ignorance and insensibility. Helen Keller
When I see someone smile, I know immediately that he or she is dwelling in awareness. This half-smile, how many artists have labored to bring it to the lips of countless statues and paintings? I am sure the same smile must have been on the faces of the sculptors and painters as they worked. Can you imagine an angry painter giving birth to such a smile? Yet even a smile like that is enough to relax all the muscles in our face, to banish all worries and fatigue. A tiny bud of a smile on our lips nourishes awareness and calms us miraculously. It returns us to the peace we thought we had lost. Thich Nhat Hanh
You know of the disease in Central Africa called sleeping sickness…There also exists a sleeping sickness of the soul. Its most dangerous aspects that one is unaware of its coming. That is why you have to be careful. As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference, the moment you become aware of the loss of a certain seriousness, of longing, of enthusiasm and zest, take it as a warning. You should realize your soul suffers if you live superficially. Albert Schweitzer
For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine, but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano and play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being. Pau Casals (composer 1876-1973)
Can we learn from the composer? To begin each morning with two pieces of music (music to each of us may be listening to songs, watching flowers try to open, looking over a field, watching a child sleep, listening to the two birds rehearsing). Begin every morning seeking immediately something beautiful. A decision to have this be first each morning? Thank you for letting me enter your Thursdays and for entering our store. I hope I’m working when you come in, but if I’m not – how much your business means. Have a beautiful end of your week. The birds are singing nearby…listen. They are singing for you. The little flowers are opening nearby. Notice. They are opening to encourage you and bring you beauty. Susan
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Latin for this week:
Vita non est vivere sed valere vita est – Life is more than merely staying alive.
Works Cited:
Simkin, Daren. The Traveler. 2008. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York.
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Daisy Quotations & Poetry (June 2024)
Susan's Thursday morning note June 27, 2024 Quotes & Poetry on Daisies ~ Daisies reminding us all to continually open after darkness. To face upwards.
Good morning! The trees look like June icicles with the sunlight hitting the wet leaves just perfectly. My little birds are all sleeping in. One little butterfly has decided to greet me this morning. She is flying past my window encouraging me to enter this day…to look up to her heavens to keep my perspective of life being beautiful. Now she is sweeping past my columbine to remind me to notice. To start my day aware and in awe of the gifts from the heavens already given to me this morning. All sparkling from the morning light hitting their wet petals. My angel of dawn now also peering into my window handing me a morning daisy with raindrops still on the petals. My little daisy always looking up to the heavens.
A children’s songbook was brought into the store this week published in 1929. I try to picture the child that sang from this particular book. The schoolhouse. The songs in the air. The butterfly the child watched playing near the daisies. One song in particular I loved, The Daisies by Julia Willard. “See the daisies have come to town With frilled white cap and new green gown; They nod so gaily as we pass, and nestle safely in the grass, And nestle safely in the grass…”
The origin of the word daisy comes from the Old English word dægeseage, meaning “day’s eye” – for the flower opened and closed with the sun. When looking for older poetry and quotes on the daisy so many reference opposite emotions. Joy. Meadows. Spring. Friendship. Sorrow. Graveyards. Quiet meadows. Tears. Grief. Friendship. Brides. Tombstones. Daisies for the extremes. But always touching the soul so deeply. Were they created intentionally to help us remember to always open and close and open and close our souls throughout our lives. To rest as the sun rests? To awaken and look to the heavens as the sun rises? Below are my favorite poems and quotes from different centuries referring to the daisy. Joy. Sorrow. All beautiful.
One can get just as much exultation in losing oneself in a little thing as in a big thing. It is nice to think how one can be recklessly lost in a daisy. Anne Lindbergh
I had wondered for a long time why God had preferences and why all souls did not receive an equal amount of grace…Jesus saw fit to enlighten me about this mystery. He set the book of nature before me and I saw that all the flowers He has created are lovely. The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. I realized that if every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness and there would be no wild flowers to make the meadows gay. Nature would no longer be enameled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our Lord’s living garden. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)
The love of God toward you is like the Amazon River flowing down to water a single daisy. F.B. Meyer (1847-1929)
I shall soon be laid in the quiet grave Thank God for the quiet grave! O! I can feel the cold earth above me The daisies growing over me O for this quiet – it will be my first. John Keats (1795-1821)
But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic monotony that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
Daisy (Anonymous, Published 1887 The Fortnightly Review, Princeton University) I'd choose to be a daisy, If I might be a flower, My petals closing softly At twilight's quiet hour, And waking in the morning When falls the early dew, To welcome heaven's bright sunshine, And heaven's bright tear-drops too. I love the gentle lily: It looks so meek and fair; But daisies I love better, For they grow everywhere. The lilies bloom so sadly, In sunshine or in shower; But daisies still look upward, However dark the hour.Daisy Hymn by T.F. Seward 1835-1902) In the early Springtime, when the violets grow, When the birds sing sweetly, and the soft winds blow, Comes the little daisy, blooming fresh and fair, Springing bright and joyous in the morning air. Sunny little blossom, on your slender stalk, How much you would teach us if you could but talk! Every looking upward, all the livelong day, Bright your faces turn, To catch each sunbeam’s ray.
Daisies by Frank Dempster Sherman (1860-1916) At evening when I go to bed I see the stars shine overhead; They are the little daisies white That dot the meadow of the Night. And often while I'm dreaming so, Across the sky the Moon will go; It is a lady, sweet and fair, Who comes to gather daisies there. For, when at morning I arise, There's not a star left in the skies; She's picked them all and dropped them down Into the meadows of the town.
Daisy Flower Child by Elizabeth Gordon (published 1910) Little golden-hearted Daisy Told the sun that she felt lazy; Said the earth was quite too wet, She thought she wouldn’t open yet.
The Field Flower by Ann Taylor (1782-1866) I’m a pretty little thing, Always coming with the spring; In the meadows green I'm found, Peeping just above the ground, And my stalk is cover'd flat With a white and yellow hat. Little Mary, when you pass Lightly o'er the tender grass, Skip about, but do not tread On my bright but lowly head, For I always seem to say, "Surely winter's gone away."
Thank you for letting me again enter your Thursday. I now hear my little birds that slept in late singing a little off key, but singing their hearts out to me, nonetheless. Sunny little blossom, on your slender stalk, How much you would teach us if you could but talk! Ever looking upward, all the livelong day, Bright your faces turn, To catch each sunbeam’s ray...Tonight we will have the chance to mentally write our epitaph of moments we will no longer get back. Moments ahead of us the next few hours. Will we mentally stop sand as it flows so quickly with time? Will we notice eyes? Will we hear the birds and look up them in gratefulness for their songs? Will we drop to our knees, even mentally, for strength? Will we look to the heavens? Will we notice? Life. So fast. So beautiful. Thank you for coming into our store for your toys, gifts, books, and friendship. Have a beautiful weekend – the daisies are reminding us all to continually open after the darkness. To face upwards. To hear the birds and notice as the children notice. Blessed are the children. They notice details. They see God. Susan
Latin for this week: primula – daisy ego levo oculos meos ad caelum – I lift my eyes to the heavens.
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Morning Prayer. Trust. Hope. Responsibility to Life. Love. (May 2024)
Susan's Thursday morning note May 30, 2024 Morning Prayer. Trust. Hope. Responsibility to Life. Love.Good morning! So dark this morning. No moon. No stars. Just the “infinite expectation of dawn, which does not forsake us in our deepest sleep.” Any moment I will see what color the sun wore to bed last night. Yellow? Pink? Gray? What animals are just now being called in by their mothers to sleep for the day? What little nests have been prepared for the little ones who played all night? Little spiders heading in to their homes. Large mammals I can only imagine right now pawing in their den to sleep for the day after a night of hunting for their babies, for they also have the “infinite expectation of dawn...” Another gift about to arrive as my angel of dawn tries to peer through my curtains to hand me her gift. This day. Our gift. Another day to look to the heavens for our morning prayer of gratitude and for the gift given from the heavens of peace. My scene for you holds a steaming cup of coffee, little paws opening and shutting with purring breaking my silence, and two thin books that strengthen me. I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes and Mother Teresa: No Greater Love. Below are words I hope will give you strength to find the beauty and hope in the day ahead of you.
Prayer at Morning by Robert Louis Stevenson The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.
I Trust by Helen Keller I trust, and nothing that happens disturbs my trust. I recognize the beneficence of the power which we all worship as supreme – Order, Fate, the Great Spirit, Nature, God. I recognize this power in the sun that makes all things grow and keeps life afoot. I make a friend of this indefinable force, and straightway feel glad, brave, and ready for any lot heaven may decree for me. This is my religion of optimism. Experiencing a great sorrow is like entering a cave. We are overwhelmed by the darkness, the loneliness, the homesickness. Sad thoughts, like bats, flutter about us in the gloom. We feel that there is no escape from the prison house of pain. But God in His loving-kindness has set on the invisible wall the lamp of faith – whose beams shall guide us back to the sunlit world where work and friends and service await us.
The Art of Hope by Wilferd Peterson “The well-known maxim, “While there is life there is hope,” has deeper meaning in reverse: “While there is hope there is life.” Hope comes first, life follows. Hope gives power to life. Hope rouses life to continue, to expand, to grow, to reach out, to go on. Hope sees a light when there isn’t any. Hope lights candles in millions of despairing hearts. Hope is the miracle medicine of the mind. It inspires the will to live. Hope is the physician’s strongest ally. Hope is man’s shield and buckler against defeat. “Hope,” wrote Alexander Pope, “springs eternal in the human breast.” And as long as it does man will triumph and move forward. Hope never sounds retreat. Hope keeps the banners flying. Hope revives ideals, renews dreams, revitalizes visions. Hope scales the peak, wrestles with the impossible, achieves the highest aim. “The word which God has written o the brow of every man,” wrote Victor Hugo, “is Hope.” As long as man has hope no situation is hopeless.”
Responsibility to Life by Henry David Thoreau “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful, but I is more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.”
No Greater Love by Mother Teresa “What we need is to love without getting tired. How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. What are these drops of oil in our lamps? They are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others, our way of being silent, of looking, of speaking, and of acting. Do not look for Jesus away from yourselves. he is not out there; He is in you. Keep your lamp burning, and you will recognize Him.”
The lamp. The invisible lamp. The lamp inside of us. The candle. All words of beauty. Of quiet. Of stillness. Of direction. Of hope. Lamp. Candle. Both such peaceful words used by these writers to guide us. Still no sign of the sun coming today. But the “infinite expectation of dawn” is in my soul. The knowledge the sun will appear any moment. The same hope of light from the candle. The lamp. The peace from the heavens if we only “lift up our eyes.” The promise of peace is in the glance. The infinite expectation of knowing that we will be given peace at only a glance. Tonight we will have the chance to write again words of the epitaph for the day gone. Will any moments be worthy of inscription in stone? Will we stop the continually moving sand in our minds even if we cannot stop the sand flowing. Will we notice the gifts? The eyes? They leaves. The quiet hawks. The infinite expectation of the peace that passes anyone’s understanding awaits all of us if we will only stop. Look to the heavens. Silently pray. Thank you for letting me enter your Thursday. Thank you for your business and friendship. I hope you can get a book soon from our store. We can then hope that your particular book will feed your soul. Susan
Latin for this week: spes, spei – hope spem habere – to have hope or to entertain hope perforre – to bear through to the end obdurare – to remain firm, hold out, persist
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Pain from death of our mothers. Letters from Motherless Daughters edited by Hope Edelman
Selections from “Letters from Motherless Daughters” Edited by Hope EdelmanGood morning! Pouring rain. Darkness mixed with morning light depending on which window I choose to look out. Cat demanding attention at the keyboard. Books surrounding me, each vying for my attention. I’d like to write out a poem that I really loved this week, then take a turn for distinctly different thoughts. A book was brought into the store this week that called my name. Letter from Motherless Daughters. At the risk of being vulnerable and opening any wounds I am going to write some of what I underlined last night. This book has letters divided by the length of the time since their mothers died, written by daughters who lost their mothers within five years, five to ten years, ten to twenty years, and then more than thirty years. Although written for those specifically losing their moms at young ages, I hope the lines I’ve underlined and will quote will burrow also in anyone who has had someone that loved them deeply die.
Epigram by Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) Were I a king, I could command content; Were I obscure, hidden should be my cares; Or were I dead, no cares should me torment, No hopes, no hates, nor loves, nor griefs, nor fears. A doubtful choice, of these three which to crave - A kingdom, or a cottage, or a grave.Excerpts from Letters from Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman. What I will write below is all found within her book, with many of the sentences from contributors to her book. I am going to not list each specific contributor, but instead only the words they wrote. Disconnected thoughts I underlined as I read for you to connect in your own minds as you have your own thoughts and memories. I’m going to write out what all I underlined, making this a long note, but hopefully a gift to those of you who are motherless as it was to me, unexpectedly arriving in my world yesterday.
When a daughter loses a mother, the intervals between grief responses lengthen over time, but her longing never disappears. It always hovers at the edge of her awareness, prepared to surface at any time, in any place, in the least expected ways.
How can I write a book telling women that mourning or a mother never really ends? That’s not a very hopeful message. A daughter’s mourning for a lost mother never completely stops. Instead, it evolves over time, often leading a woman to a place where, instead of actively grieving, she can describe the feeling as a sense of “missing” her mother, and where she can even begin to see some long-term positive outcomes of early mother loss.
We can call on our inner presences to join us in the morning over coffee and rolls…Long after the return of logic and reason, long after we rejoin the world of the living, we are still attached to our lost ones. The human dialogue – that which makes living a life worthwhile – goes on. In the absence of this dialogue, we are lost.
..she urges me to play the piano again.
I’ll never get over the death of my mother. It is a stone that will always weigh heavy in my heart. I like to think f therapy as the process of turning that stone from dense, heavy granite to a light, porous pumice. The stone will never be beautiful or smooth to the touch. But I can use that pumice to grind down the rough edges of my life. I can learn to live with this loss.
The self that existed before a major life event is not quite the same self that walks away from that event…a new life emerges…The dividing line between the self I am and the self I became.
It can take women years – and for some women, many years – to acknowledge, understand, and learn from the changes that have occurred as a result of early loss. Accepting that her life changed irrevocably when her mother died or left, and that she’ll never be able to return to the child she was before. Death firmly shuts that door. As long as she resists this obvious and immutable truth, she’ll continue struggling to find the peace she needs to successfully move on.
Daughters without such an adult may suppress or deny their true feelings for years, stuffing them under layers of stoicism and false maturity. It’s not unheard of for a daughter to experience her acute grief phase ten or twenty years after her mother’s death, when she finally feels stable enough within her own life to succumb to he intense emotions she’s been suppressing for all that time.
You may not always hear me, but you’ll always feel my answer.
I want to dial the house and have her pick up the phone. I want to hear her laugh. I want to hug her. I want to give her a beautiful grandchild to spoil. I want her to smooth my hair the way she did.
My mom’s death had some good points, if you could call them that. Small things doing stress me out anymore. I am more passionate about everything – I really appreciate a beautiful day…
The impulse to pick up the telephone and call a mother has transformed into the wish that the mother could be called.
The knowledge of the reality that she will not be picking up the phone when I’m calling, or dropping what she’s doing so that she can talk with me is often heartbreaking. I miss being able to call her at work and just say, “Hi! I was thinking of you.”
It would mean the world to me just to – once again – see my mother smile at me, touch me, and say my name, one last time. (personal note – I couldn’t bear the “last” time relived).
Adult daughters feel vulnerable and long to be taken care of.
..emotionally mixed days…I found that the joy and the sadness have a weird way of mixing together, and what a struggle that is.
…what I wouldn’t do to have one second just to touch her and have her with me for a moment…there is not a single day that goes by when my mother is not on my mind…I have grieved for almost nine years, and always will. My house holds her things; she is in my soul; my mother is me. The day after my mother died, I noticed a piece of paper on top of a box in her closet. It was something she had written to herself after losing her father. This letter has brought me and many other people I have given it to great comfort. It sits in a frame on my desk, and I read it every day:
Who said my father is gone? He is here- I see him – I smell him. I touch him. Who said I lost my father? Who said my father is dead – who said it? How can he be dead – We’re all here – my mother, my sisters and brother, my children, my nieces and nephews. When you’re dead there is nothing – but there is something – I feel the lump in my throat – My head hurts – I have his sweater – with some of his hair on it. I have his chair. I have his deck of cards that he held in his hands. I smell my father – I want him. I won’t give him up. Who said I lost my father?
…she had the most beautiful hands.
I refuse to forget her. Maybe the sound of her voice has faded from my memory, but the love she gave me, the sense of humor she passed on to me, and the sense of integrity that she possessed are here waiting for me to pass on to my child…
My mom gave me a travel alarm clock with a card that is now framed and in my bathroom. I read it each morning. “To Meredith, to wish you the best of time in the future, to keep you on time for all of your appointments, and to remind you that I love you all of the time. Mother.”
Perhaps my mother’s death elevated what her importance in my life was to be. If she were alive, she may not have been that big of an influence, but the loss of her prevents me from knowing that for sure. To me, she was my biggest supporter and I lost that. I lost that person who thought I was the greatest, no matter what. I know if my mother were alive we would fight, she would make me mad, shame me – the usual irritating things mothers do. She would also love me, listen to me, support me emotionally, cook for me, care for me, mother me. I could have somewhere to go home to where I didn’t have to be in charge and “on.” I still miss my mom with tears in my eyes when I let myself think about her.
I think her absence is felt most at ordinary moments, like when I’m shopping for baby clothes, tending my garden, driving down a beautiful stretch of road – So many times I feel real envy for their ability to pick up the phone and share a chat with Mom. Only a few days after my mother died, I dialed her number just to hear it ring, to fantasize she was out of the house on an errand. In a way, I think I am still doing this mentally, and probably will continue. It’s my way of keeping her alive, and of keeping her with me.
…being motherless always meant being older than I felt.
…my mother’s death served to crystallize my awareness of death. I am hyper-aware that death can come at any time, to anyone, which makes me careful to notice life and enjoy it.
If she were still alive, we’d probably be going around and around about most everything, because heredity or environment has given me her spirit. I’m just as opinionated and outgoing, although, I believe, more tolerant. I am a confident woman, which I believe is her gift to me. She supported me and bolstered me and helped me build a tremendous amount of self-esteem in the twelve years I spent with me. Very few people can get me down o bend me to their will, but I know for a fact that if she were alive, she would be able to push my buttons with deadly accuracy. I don’t know if she would, but I know she definitely could.
…she’s never here when I need to be folded up in her arms. When I need a person like me, someone who’s honest and direct, she isn’t here. She’s not on the end of a phone line. She’s nowhere.
…I love my daughter fiercely, but I find a sense of sadness in that, as if it makes me more vulnerable to future pain. I am constantly reminded that I have no one I can go to when I need to be hld. I wonder at times if the feelings I have when holding my daughter are different from other women who hold their daughters, women who don’t need extra love from their daughters because they have a source in a living mother. I try to assess every relationship and gesture on my part to see if I am expecting too much, or hoping for too much in the way of a deep connection between hearts.
…what you say is true: losing a mother was not “meant” to happen. It strengthens us and gives us character, but I for one am tired of being strong. I’d give it all up for being wrapped in her scent and her hug.
I had always felt that after twenty-seven years I shouldn’t feel so sad near the anniversary of Mom’s death, that I shouldn’t feel so empty at the thought of her being gone. But I did.. Mostly the pain was muted in my everyday life, but as my son has gotten older and have told him about her, it’s returned. She died of cancer, and I remember everything that happened in the six months she was ill as if it were yesterday…My mom was thirty-six when she died, and the day I turned thirty-seven was one of the oddest days of my life…Although I can remember the events of that time in my life with utter clarity, I cannot remember feeling the grief that surprises me at times now…I look at my sensitive fourteen-year-old son and can see myself in him I imagine how it would absolutely devastate him to lose me, and I see myself at thirteen again. Suddenly the pain is as real as the events were.
…although my life has not been pathetic because my mom died, her death did affect me in ways I’m just now beginning to understand. I was always a can-do, by-the-bootstraps kind of woman. I think I got that strength mostly because I had to get along after Mom was gone. And that’s good. But I was also judgmental: Why couldn’t others manage their lives like I did through adversity? I’m softening, learning to accept weaknesses in others, as I’m learning to accept the damaged parts of me.
…I have met very few motherless daughters, and most people of my acquaintance have no idea what impact her death has had on me…
When a mother dies, a daughter grieves. And then her life moves on. She does, thankfully, feel happiness again. But the missing her, the wanting her, the wishing she were still here—I will not lie to you, although you probably already know. That part never ends.
I don’t know how to pull all of those different excerpts together for you. I will thank you again for letting me enter your Thursday; for letting me write out words that have been written over time to help us realize life is beautiful. There is “nothing new under the sun…” Rain falls gently now. Nature looks upward outside my window. Flowers looking upwards towards the heavens. Birds flying upwards towards the heavens. Not caring what their particular songs are, just knowing that their song in itself makes their creator smile. Our songs. Regardless of how we’re singing, just the fact that we are continuing to sing, to fly upward, to look upward, to keep our eternal perspective. Beautiful. Life. Our gift. The angel of dawn is drenched at my doorstep, but she is singing. Singing her song composed for my life today. Handing me a rose with raindrops on the bud. Life. Beautiful life. Susan
Latin for this week: Tempus omnia sed memorias privat – Time deprives all but memories. alma mater – nourishing mother Meam amare matrem – to love my mother.Works Cited: Edelman, Hope. Letters from Motherless Daughters. Addison-Wesley. Reading, MA. 1995.