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
Mockingbird Chronicles 