drumming

Catching Memory

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is to write a Catching Poem. This is a little rough, but I like how it starts to say what I mean, so I’ll put it here as a place-holder today, with hopes to revise it when I get a chance.

How can I know if I’m remembering things
as they happened to me or how they were told to me?
I come from of family of memory-keepers and
storytellers, and the branches of my own memory
are caught in the branches of others,
the narrative threads tangled in the repetitions,
the colors and textures shifting from telling
to telling, so that certain memories are like layers of film,
each slightly different from the one below,
the edges blurring and the colors deepening
as the layers blend, the final picture an inaccurate
representation and a perfect idealization of the actual event,
clearer and more distinct than the moment of happening,
gaining a tenderness in the telling and retelling
that holds a truth more true than one person’s memory can catch.

Gratitude List:
1. Anticipating sleep. I have insomnia occasionally, but it’s always middle of the night insomnia. I almost always fall asleep immediately when my head hits the pillow. I love that feeling of letting sleep take me like a wave.
2. Winter sweaters. I got the rest of my winter sweaters out of the attic today. I love my sweaters.
3. Uji. I’ve been fermenting millet to make Tanzanian uji for breakfast. I love the sour taste.
4. Fall colors. Are the colors more beautiful, deeper, more rich, than usual? I think they are especially beautiful this year.
5. Art and drumming. I went with my friend Christine to PAVAA art gallery for a drumming and art show tonight. The drummer put paint on her drumsticks and drummed a painting onto a canvas she draped over her drums. Another woman, on a set of congas, did a spontaneous spoken word riff on the colors the drummer was laying down.
May we walk in Beauty!

Saturday’s Falling and Getting Up Again:
“Both when we fall and when we get up again, we are kept in the same precious love.” ―Julian of Norwich

“What if I should discover that the poorest of the beggars and the most impudent of offenders are all within me; and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I, myself, am the enemy who must be loved–what then?” ―Carl Jung

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”
―Eleanor Roosevelt

“If I had influence with the good fairy, I would ask that her gift to each child be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.”
―Rachel Carson

“Your problem is you’re too busy holding onto your unworthiness.” ―Ram Dass

“In giving of yourself, you will discover a whole new life full of meaning and love.” ―Cesar Chavez

“While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
―Eugene V. Debs

“I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too. Ma Joad: I don’t understand it, Tom. Tom Joad: Me, neither, Ma, but – just somethin’ I been thinkin’ about.”
―Tom Joad, from the movie Grapes of Wrath

“And don’t we all, with fierce hunger, crave a cave of solitude, a space of deep listening—full of quiet darkness and stars, until we hear a syllable of God echoing in the core of our hearts?”
—Macrina Wiederkehr

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.” —Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

“The way that I understand it, dreaming is nature naturing through us. Just as a tree bears fruit or a plant expresses itself in flowers, dreams are fruiting from us. The production of symbols and story is a biological necessity. Without dreams, we could not survive. And though it is possible to get by without remembering our dreams, a life guided and shaped by dreaming is a life that follows the innate knowing of the earth itself. As we learn to follow the instincts of our inner wilderness, respecting its agreements and disagreements, we are also developing our capacity for subtlety. This sensitivity is what makes us more porous and multilingual, bringing us into conversation with the many languages of the world around us.” — Toko-pa Turner

Learning the Map

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

A few years ago, a friend of mine told me about some online quizzes that help you learn world geography. I play them every few months, and every time I come back, I have lost fewer of them. Now I put myself to sleep at night by reciting the names of the nations of the world. It’s time for a new challenge. I am going to start on flags now, and then capitals, I think.

One of the powerful benefits of this has been that when I read headlines about the people of The Gambia suing Myanmar for the genocide of the Rohingya people, I no longer think, “Somewhere in Africa” or “Somewhere in Asia.” I see the place on the map. As tensions with Iran have increased, I see Iran in my head, where it is in relation to the countries around it. When students say they come from Thailand, or South Korea, or Singapore, or Ghana, I can picture where they come from on the map in my head. And so I have increased the sense of my own place, my own places, too.

It also increases my anxiety at times. A couple years ago when the Caribbean was torn apart by massive hurricanes, I knew the names of the islands in their paths, could sense the vulnerability in ways I had been previously unable to imagine. But some painful knowings are important knowings, and help me to better understand my own connection to others.

As we apply ourselves to the study of our own inner maps, I think we have similar experiences. When I dare to memorize the shape and location of sadness and despair within myself, then perhaps I can be more attentive when I see it in someone else. “I recognize that!” Joy. Confusion. Satisfaction. Secretiveness. Deviousness. Compassion and Empathy. They all take on more recognizable shapes as I explore their geography within me. And the anxious knowing applies as well. How will your small islands weather the hurricanes of grief and loss and stress? Can you pick up the pieces and set up a new infrastructure when the storms rage through? Hang in there. Put out a call for help to others to send boats and aid, to airlift hope and helping hands.

Gratitude List:
1. Asian New Year celebration at my school today. Such talented students. Songs, drumming, and K-Pop Dancers. Incredible!
2. Half a day to grade. Catching up with myself.
3. I’ve been reading the poetry of Reginald Dwayne Betts in the spaces of the day. His word-work is so inspiring.
4. That samosa a student brought me from their Ethnic Foods class (or maybe it was just Ethnic Foods Unit in a regular Foods class?)
5. Walking, stretching, being good to the organism that is me.

May we walk in Beauty!