"How Wonderful" by Irving Feldman

How wonderful to be understood,

to just sit here while some kind person

relieves you of the awful burden

of having to explain yourself, of having

to find other words to say what you meant,

or what you think you thought you meant,

and of the worse burden of finding no words,

of being struck dumb . . . because some bright person

has found just the right words for you—and you

have only to sit here and be grateful

for words so quiet so discerning they seem

not words but literate light, in which

your merely lucid blossoming grows lustrous.

How wonderful that is!

And how altogether wonderful it is

not to be understood, not at all, to, well,

just sit here while someone not unkindly

is saying those impossibly wrong things,

or quite possibly they’re the right things

if you are, which you’re not, that someone

—a difference, finally, so indifferent

it would be conceit not to let it pass,

unkindness, really, to spoil someone’s fun.

And so you don’t mind, you welcome the umbrage

of those high murmurings over your head,

having found, after all, you are grateful

—and you understand this, how wonderful!—

that you’ve been led to be quietly yourself,

like a root growing wise in darkness

under the light litter, the falling words.

parallelism

Castanets clicking shoulders spasming stomach contorting the theme is exorcism the theme is embodied the theme is integration hear it Take me to the river dancing grief lakeside can't be me can that gold-bathed warrior really be chest broaden shoulders pull back I have healed my spine she/I walk regal through forest frog rabbits deer lions we pay our respects removes broadsword from sheath redacted swallows me

shoulders arms wrists hands twitching stomach contorting absorbing stillness happens when integration is complete. I found you. Tears roll. Dance in-outside grief exorcism castanets Amazonian warrior woman dressed in leather shining gold fighting for higher consciousness


I bow my blue-grey wings to the great blue heron. I bow my brown-white wings to the red-tailed hawk. I prostrate my woolen sides to the bighorn. I take honored to red-furred fours before the grey fox.


We howl



Like the coyotes before us, three or four on that rigdeline over there, sounds like an army, sounds like they're playing, sounds like they love each other, sounds like part of me anxious to go inside. There cooking peppers onions quinoa chicken and apple sausages on the electric skillet and the hotpot learning how to host we cook for him we listen to the Grateful Dead we laugh sometimes and exclaim over the color purple in paintings


Like an itch like a compulsion anxiety building until the release, get back to writing, you're on the right track, remember who you are


Today's extra hour spent cross-country skiing six miles into the backcountry, back down again knees ankles aching from forcing way through cold-hardened snow

Imagine how much easier in powder. Look how beautiful

From "Mind Wanting More" by Holly J. Hughes

But the mind always
wants more than it has—
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses—as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.

"Choices" by Tess Gallagher

I go to the mountain side

of the house to cut saplings,

and clear a view to snow

on the mountain. But when I look up,

saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in

the uppermost branches.

I don’t cut that one.

I don’t cut the others either.

Suddenly, in every tree,   

an unseen nest

where a mountain   

would be.

                        

                              for Drago Štambuk

There's just as much inspiration here

And then can you believe it I, me, got a hankering to watch a football game for the first time in at least a dozen years. And then can you believe it when we looked up the schedule that was available in our area Penn State was playing Michigan in the prime time game. And then we put on the game and I sat rapt for the next several hours, yelling at the TV occasionally get him or stop im stop him stop him yessssssss, thinking about kaiser rolls with a little mayo, a little mustard, turkey and Swiss and some romaine lettuce and a slice of tomato, generous side of gherkins and dill pickles, Martin's potato chips, remembering the door open to the green-treed yard and my mom yelling, dad on his feet with excitement, missing my siblings, my parents, my childhood dogs. And then can you believe it we won.


All week we have cared for two dogs and Hanna has loved it and aside from needing to wipe down two wet bellies after that chilly impromptu dip in the river so have I



Yesterday we drove the dogs up, up until rain turned to snow and then we hiked through a winter wonderland--snowy creeks, meadows, wooden bridges over water. Evergreen forests tall enough to make you crane your neck


Don't go back to sleep 



Hanna you've got this

Four pumpkins perched comfortably about the living room as if they owned the place, one on top of the bookshelf, one on top of the crate tipped sideways and filled with cookbooks, board games, old magazines, one on top of the speaker out of which we blasted 1990s concerts while deep cleaning the apartment with the windows open

As I write Wilson sits on my chest pressing the top of his head into my mouth and I with my arms extended 'round either side of him rest my occasionally kissing lips on his sweet orange little fuzz head


So many vivid dreams this week I'm pretty sure Ben Stiller wanted to fuck me

What I enjoyed more than knowing that he found me interesting was cussing out that dickbag who squeezed my right butt cheek

Most of all what I am enjoying is my waking life--so many family cuddle times and sleeping better and writing more and eating well and reading poetry and remembering to play a bit and, as my guides have suggested, dancing




After we hiked through the creeksides and meadows and forests in snow we all piled back into the car and exclaimed over the fun we'd had

We're all in our amygdalas

Don't put me on a pedestal; I'm no longer willing to do the work to stay on it

Letting myself be a human being these days


Is his desire triggering to me?

When he doesn't ask I slide off the couch and onto my knees


I'm happy for you that you're getting married. I hope it goes well

Life changes go with it



I trusted everything but my own experience

Walk the snowy trail with my tongue sticking out


I'm a see-er

Genius doesn't work on humanity's timetable



Two nights ago four happy dogs of all colors shapes and sizes surrounded me as I dolled out treats and it was one of the best experiences of my entire life



Culture has taught us to worship something that isn't our own hearts


Remember the sound of coyotes howling

"The last time we met you said YOLO to me"

Sick but still a 20-mile bike ride, worth it

Lying on my back on the couch hair wet from showering

Waiting for the comforter to finish drying so I can put it on the bed, too cold now to sleep without it



I thought of a really cool line earlier

Last week I saw three hawks fighting in the air in front of a cliff

Today during my bike ride I saw two hawks, but this time they were resting on branches in miles-apart trees



Now that someone has told me I'm good of course I'm worried about being a quack

People condescend to my chosen letters and so I don't tell many people

It's not that I care what they think, it's just that I'd rather not deal with it



Amazing to realize that I am needing less external validation. In the past even one person disliking me would be agonizing. Now in many cases I truly do not care

For some reason I am remembering walking and biking through that playground park on the sleepy west (west?) side of that middle-of-the-state town, leaves aflame with Fall



In just a few weeks I have written nearly 30 pages. What will I accomplish when I'm doing this regularly for two whole years? A lot of pages. A lot of writing. A lot of processing. A lot of understanding. A lot of healing. A lot of focusing. A lot of liberation.


That woman had been waiting her whole life for a chance to walk the runway, and even though it was a surprise and she hadn't been practicing she was beyond ready to deliver



You just step up to the plate and play ball