Well written poetry heals souls.
Why bother using an Ivy League vocabulary when the truth is as simple as that?
Well
written
poetry
heals
souls.
When discussing great literature, I catch myself wanting to write as if I’ve graduated from Baylor instead of business college. That makes book reviews difficult for me sometimes. I want to match the intellect of the authors in question and write as if I were a scholar myself. My main problem with that however is the scholastic approach to writing does not match my day-to-day voice. I’m not an MFA graduate. I’m just me. Mac and Cheese as Molly calls me. Comfort food in many ways.
I went looking for my literary voice last year and found my heart. Granted my heart was at the time in a about a million pieces all over the floor. I was lost in the rubble when a ragtag band of modern-day poets and women’s rights activists invited me to internet tea last fall. We banded together as only women can and sifted through the debris of unmet needs, false hopes, unrealistic expectations of others and toxic co-dependency. Their love and acceptance breathes life into my battle weary soul.
I have no idea how long I’d been holding my breath; it must have been a while. I just know that it had been long time since I’d had fresh air. I found a respite and breathing place with these women. I took big gulps of air at first and gushed quite a bit over their acceptance and caring. I’ve settled in quite nicely now and my heart rate and oxygen levels have returned to normal.
Recovering from a broken heart takes more time than I am sometimes willing to allow. One of the unexpected bonuses, while I am picking up the pieces I discover that not all of them fit any more. This is good news. This means there is room for more —
More friends
More hope
More adventures
More love.
I have officially turned the corner and the scenery is to die for.
I wrote my first poem of sorts in many years on September 12 of 2011. My poetic soul knows what I didn’t. You might say it was my battle cry.
The Fractured Mirror
To be handed one’s emotional ass on a silver platter and yet have so little regard for self, that the best revelation one can muster that anything is wrong are stomach issues, persistent blushing, and chest pain is a travesty. While it is true that artists are capable of being emotionally empathetic to a fault and that our souls can easily be a magnet to acts of spiritual terrorism, we still have choices.
Does one choose to succumb to this warped sense of reality, thereby being a victim of the fractured mirror of others as well as their own learned misogynistic views? Or can the false mirror be broken and a new paradigm created?
Some world views are nothing more than a fractured reflection of one’s own self-hatred and false dichotomies.
Unrealistic expectations and lies of others do not define me. I DEFINE ME.
Thus began my journey back to wholeness and life. Molly gave us the following poem during my very first week of writing classes – I’d never read The Journey by Mary Oliver before. As soon as I read it, I knew I was home.
one day you finally knew what you had to do, and began. though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice, though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles, “mend my life!” – each voice cried, but you didn’t stop you knew what you had to do. though the wind pried with its stiff finger at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible, it was already late enough and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches & stones. but little by little as you left their voices behind the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds. and there was a new voice which you suddenly recognized as your own and that kept you company as you strode deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do, determined to save the only life you could save. – mary oliver
I’m continuing my journey next week by attending Poetry Book Camp led by Molly Fisk which means I won’t be here. While I’m gone might I suggest reading a good poetry book or better yet – write your own poems. Like I said – Well written poetry heals souls. Your soul is worth it.
I’ll be back before the month is out.
Take care.
A very touching piece from a blogger friend over seas. Worth the read
But many of them are unfurnished and unlit. Those rooms are the possibilities afforded by our personalities and abilities. Gradually, if misfortune strikes, we will turn off the lights of one room after another, till the warm and blazing mansion of personality is now some brooding unlite and dilapidated shelter on the hill. Many of us have compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves but the numbers of the unfortunate in this world runs into many millions. The more fortunate will gradually furnish more and more of their alloted space till those who pass them by look in wonder at the plenty which surrounds them. With all of us some rooms remain unlit, and possibly even undiscovered by their owners. These are the dormant talents and possibilities we all have within us.
We ask how a beggar can live on the streets. Because they shut down and become anesthetized to…
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It’s all about perspective — I told my son last night that I was going outside to work on sucking less at playing my banjo (aka practice) and he looked at me and said, “Mom you play that thing better than everyone in this house – including Dad and he’s a musician. You don’t have the right to say you suck at something when you are better than all of us. Just sayin.” — Man I love that kid.
I’m a horrible perfectionist. I used to think a perfectionist did everything perfectly or at least near perfect. It took me years to learn that being a perfectionist is a demand rather than an outcome. The self-inflicted demand is more often than not the root of a stink weed of a memory and/or fear of abandonment.
I don’t like doing things I can’t do well and if I can’t do it well enough to suit myself, the old me just didn’t keep trying. I didn’t see the reward in trying again. While riding horses last year, I learned that I’d have great days of riding as well as days of great humility. Some days Cowboy did exactly what I asked and other days he just wanted to jack with me.
Learning the banjo is no different. Some days I nail it, some days my picks trip up the strings and my fingers can’t remember their assigned places. On days like that, I have learned to take a deep breath, relax my shoulders and try again.
For those of you who’ve been around all year you know that my word for the year is “breathe.” Oxygen does wonders for a negative brain. As simple-minded as it may sound breathing in the good and breathing out the negative works wonders.
I gave up horseback riding so that I can afford banjo lessons. While I miss riding, I do love the banjo. Playing is a different skill set entirely and yet the lessons are the same. Sit tall, be confident, keep it fun and BREATHE.
Menopause sucks. I’m just going to say it. If it’s not hot flashes, weird girl issues, sweaty palms, hormones through the roof that keep me looking at the ground half the time, and insomnia, — it’s dreams so strange that if Sigmund Freud were to analyze them he’d think “Wow that woman is messed up!”
In the past seven days I have:
Not to feel to horribly alone, a friend shared with me today that she dreamed she was forced to create macaroni art using cockroaches.
I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I want my insomnia back.
Deana O'Hara - Speaker, Comedian, Writer 