time

Almost Paradise

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

almost paradise

What a gift it is to have lifetime friends, people you can sit with and say, “Remember when you said. . .?  Remember what she did. . .?  Remember how he used to always. . .?”

People you can look in the eye and see not only a reflection of who you are in this moment, but also a reflection of who you have been–a year ago, five, ten, twenty.

People who know too much about you, who remember you before you settled adulthood’s masks into place, and they still love you, love you more for who you’ve been and who you’ve become.

People you can look at and see the butterfly of the now, but in whom can you identify the caterpillar of the past–and you love the butterfly, and the caterpillar, too.

People who know just which questions to ask.

People who help you live in this moment–with their laughter, their thoughtful eyes, their conversation.  People who draw you into the realm of memory.  People who help you envision the future.  People who help you to live in all those layers at once.

Gratitude List:
1. Living in those layers of time (past, present, future) with people I love and trust
2. People who know my warts and rough edges and love me anyway
3. The way the next generation at reunions also gathers with ease and comfort, enjoying each other
4. Peaches and ice cream
5. Crisp, cool mornings

May we walk in Beauty!

Layers of Time

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Making hay on the old farm
(Old Slabaugh Family Photo.  I’ll need to ask around to find out who they are.)

Layers of Time

Sit in this bubble
of now, and settle yourself
into the moment.
The past will wash over you,
and the future will rush in.

Gratitude List:
1. Were I on our custodial staff, I would hate it, so I feel a little sheepish saying this, but I love the way the leaves leaves track all over the floor at school on rainy days.  It’s like the trees are trying to come inside.
2. Our long-suffering and hard-working custodial staff.
3. One of my Chinese students made sushi for Advisory Group snack yesterday.  That was delicious.
4. Problem-solving.  Puzzles.  Conundrums.
5. Restorative Justice.  What if our schools and communities would start offering classes and workshops and trainings in restorative justice, in creatively addressing conflict rather than escalating it?  What if all prospective security guards and police officers were required to log 50 hours of restorative justice training (and anti-racism training) before they entered their jobs?

Blessings on your Beautiful Day!

The Room of this Moment

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

all this running
between one moment
and the next

from the room of this minute
into the room of the one to come
we scuttle and race

trailing the detritus
of our days like the stuff
falling from a half-open suitcase

appointments and obligations
litter the ground behind us
and we are gasping
grasping for the next

take a breath
sit down
on the floor of the room
of this moment in time

watch how the minutes flow over you
when you release your grasp
on the one ahead

watch how the space of this room
takes shape around you

watch how your breath
blooms into the air

 

Gratitude List:
1. Well-written popular history: Bill Bryson’s At Home, for example, which I am listening to in the car these days–a history of the house.  It has everything: agriculture, architecture, social classes, semantics and etymology.
2. Yesterday was Taking Care of Me Day.  I didn’t get a lot of work done, but I got my eyes checked and my hair done.
3. Sleep is appearing frequently on my list these days, and I am putting it down again.  I have had at least three or four 8+-hour nights lately (with minor interruptions from the cat).  It doesn’t always work, but I have found that when I can have a creative art project on the back burner of my mind during the day, I can pull it out and plan it during those moments of panic when I wake up and am suddenly panicky that I won’t get back to sleep.  Something about imagining artistic processes lulls my brain.
4. I have a love-hate relationship with this pedometer, but it’s really getting me moving.  Whoever devised this step-counting contest at school was a genius.  I have been the lowest number on my team for the first two weeks, and I am determined not to let them all down, so I stand and step in place during evening activities these days.  We play Uno a lot during these winter evenings, and I step my way through the games.  This morning my legs actually ache from all that stepping yesterday.  I hope it makes me healthier in the long run.  It is at least keeping me from being quite so sedentary.
5. Dawn.  Black tree silhouettes against newborn light.

May we walk in Beauty!

Hold the Moment

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

I had intended today’s poem to be a children’s poem.  It’s coming out more like a poem for my children.

I want to snag your memories,
to hold your busy brains and say,
“This.  This is one to hold on to.
Here.  Don’t ever let this moment go.”

Remember that day
when you first sat
in the butterfly swing
up on the hill?
I pushed you
so high
you thought you were flying
above the house
into the clouds.

Remember when we went sledding
down the barn hill
on little plastic sleds
over a bare sprinkle of snow?
“Oh, yay for sledding day!”
you hollered
as you danced
back up the hill
through the powder.

Remember the day
we went to pick up the chicks
and I saw you suddenly change
from one who is cared for
to one who cares for others?
You held the soft down
up to your cheek
and your eyes shone
with the mystery of
sudden love
for the small ones.

Remember when
you first began to read?
How you said,
“You read this one,
please,” but
you couldn’t resist
reading aloud with me
at the good parts.

Our days are constant and comfortable.
The stream of life carries us
moment to moment,
and it would spoil it,
I suppose, to try to grasp it all,
to hold onto every shining treasure.

Oh, but I want to hook these few,
hold them to me like warm quilts
carefully crafted by the grandmothers,
and pass them on to you to treasure.

Prompt for Friday

I think tomorrow I will try a chant-style poem.  Join me?

Gratitude List:

1.  “Yay for sledding day!”–Joss said it and I agree with him.
2.  Making gnomes with Ellis today.  What a delight to watch him make something that he treasures.
3.  The breezeway is clean–thanks, Jon!
4.  Fidelity, loyalty, integrity, being true, garnets.
5.  This:  “Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” ― Mary Oliver

May we walk in beauty!

2013 January 023

Ellis made the star gnome.

2013 January 018

Four new gnomes.

A Poem, A Prompt and a Picture (with a Gratitude List)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Poem
First, the poem.  Today’s prompt was to begin with “All that I have ever been. . .”  My own chosen prompt, and I really struggled with this one.  I realized as soon as I started working with it that I set it up to be too navel-gazingly self-referential.  Ah, well.  Here’s an attempt:

All that I have ever been
meets in this moment
with all that I will ever be.

Yesterday I will be different
than I was tomorrow and yet the same.

Do we grow backwards into time
as well as forwards?

Time, we know, is no fixed line.
Perhaps it is a plane,
a blank surface which we cover
like a collage.
We slide across the surfaces
laying down colors,
images, and text.

Tomorrow’s Poetry Prompt:
Last month I wrote a poem that opened itself up to some really fun collaboration.  It began “I keep Forgetting. . .”  Tomorrow I am going to finish the “I keep Remembering” poem that I began shortly thereafter.  Join me?  Write one or the other, or both!

Photo:

Rough Beast

And now for Winky’s annual re-enactment of a famous literary quotation.  Any guesses about the T.S. Eliot poem she is thinking of?

(Joss was looking at the nativity scene today and explained to me very carefully how our set is missing the pony with wings.)

Gratitude List:

1.  Easy-open citrus
2.  Fun crafting time with the kids today
3.  We will get well again
4.  Every day brings more light
5.  Really heavy antique quilts

May we walk in beauty.