It’s a tumultuous time. An era where its hard to trust information, its hard to have privacy, and its even harder to envision a world where we can be a functioning community again. These are the days that try good hearts. You are not alone. We are all in some phase of struggle. We are all clawing our way up. I love you. I see you. Do what you can, to be kind to yourself and others today. Don’t give up.
Love Me Enough
I've tried to breathe it away this constant ache a hunger, not satiated
I've tried to busy it away with lists and checked boxes
I've tried running it away until my knees were torn and my vertebra grew together
I've tried laughing it away your darkest friend is always the most funny
I've tried writing it away harsh words and compassionate pages like arms to enfold, or choke
I've tried drinking it away, until all I lost were words and years with my children
I've tried cutting it away sharp stings and barely hidden red bracelets
hoping someone would notice but even when they did no one loved me enough to stop me
I'm trying to love me enough to stop me I'm trying, this time to love it away
And I'm learning that means feeding myself on breath sitting through it in stillness running headlong into the fire allowing the storm to laugh through me and writing only the truth watering my brain like a garden holding my body close like a child Soothing the scars and loving the woman who survived long enough to stand in love now
This is my last post of 2024. I’m not sure what this new year will bring, or how much strife and struggle will be faced. I am reminding myself to find hope. In the kindness of my own heart as well as the goodness of other people I know. I hope you are getting some reflective time this week, to think about the year ahead, the things you need to prioritize and the things you are ready to let go of. I hope you are resting up for the fight to come.
Here’s a poem that was inspired by one of my favorite humans. Thank you Mary Oliver, for all the gracious insight into this wild and weird ride of life.
Built to Survive
And oh how it pains me, this disastrous cause so far removed from the fresh, cold fields and the dying gray-pink of November dusk
I am caught in the trappings of an ever-present demand create, create, create sell, and buy, and break the book's spine over the truncated timeline, more concerned for a deadline than the beautiful present view before my own dead line
We do not see the muskrat in this way go He does not build with wet, cold reeds and fallen branches to impress the critic
He builds to survive He creates to have warm shelter from the uncertain storms of life He does what he does, because he knows no other way
How it pains me this rushing through my words and upheaval of capricious page numbers flipping and fighting and settling for the shallow pond, when my heart is an ocean and this art is my shelter its honesty, my survival the only trueness left in the short and tiresome struggle of this one wild life.
October was a wonderful month and I’m actually working towards keeping up my ‘poem-a-day’ even when it turns into more of a journal entry. Sometimes writing is not just one thing, and the poetry of the everyday counts just the same. Sometimes its the way we work through past hurts, even when they aren’t really a part of our present anymore. Sometimes the lines of verse are tiny cuts to the lines that hold us to those things not meant for us. The heart is a wild and rampant beast sometimes and we all deal with the fallout of her decisions differently. Hopefully we learn something new, each time.
Untitled
I’ve written so many lines about you tracked tears under every constellation ached under the flowering trees and sweated out remorse under July skies
I’ve worried for you, rued you let the storms of winter freeze any embers I thought remained
Still they simmer past all reason, reemerging in my heart where not even a desire to live resides
You were the fall of my empire and yet I still find you in the rubbled remains the inconsistent wound that does not ever, ever heal.
It is heart deep and tragic and I never know what to do when it opens again, and again and again...
Do I press fluttering hands to it failure to staunch the bleeding in my own weakened state? Numb the pain with earthly asides? Embrace it and lick at the blood, ravenous for even the slightest taste of your attention?
If I have changed in these many years then I know you have too So how can I still claim to burn for a specter who is no longer the same that haunts my mind's halls?
How can my same old heart have not grown along with this hardened shell and deepening wrinkles? How has my tough hide not pushed out the sliver of you buried in my irate skin?
How can you still pull at my insides? It is an irrational and hungry storm and I am weary of trying to tie my lines against it
I guess after millions of years the moon still pulls the sea and no one begs to wonder why.
I’ve been attempting the challenge of writing a poem every day in October. They’re not all amazing, but some of them land in places I didn’t even know I had.
Birdhouse
I put a birdhouse up, next to my window I like to watch the lithe lightness of their bodies Bright colors and whisper bones Harbingers of Spring, Survivors of Winter sharp-beaked truth sayers forever in love with the dawn I like to watch them, hop and flutter in tree branches and shadowed gardens such a pure, simple existence I wanted to give them a home
But none have come to nest and I am wondering now, if it isn't my fault maybe I am too much heavy dark and granite bones I am the decay of Fall cold graves beneath snow, soft lips full of lies to myself and the ones I love forever lost in some night
Perhaps I am a treacherous black hole that they cannot call neighbor Still I will wait
Y’all, I’m busier than a one-legged lady in an ass kickin’ contest. So, here’s a little rerun. Because, lord knows the Heart is a Terrible driver sometimes. But we still let her take the wheel. After all, what is life for but to be messy and in love?
The Heart is A Terrible Driver
I am the owner of a body in the trunk the forgotten musty trunk in recesses of my memory muffled and tied up speechless to the ways my heart fell
Hearts do what they do and mine she is so big so eloquent a speaker so deviously soft and swaying…
she convinced me that she was the only one who could drive the beast of me through life, and it would all work out
while my brain sat in the back seat, shaking her head and looking at me in the rearview mirror mouthing the words
You know better Your gonna hate yourself for letting her drive
Brain was right Heart took us off a fucking cliff the first chance she got giggling with the thrill the free fall of Love drunk on its chemical cocktail
all the way down Brain stayed silent, arms crossed over her chest as if to say
nothing I tell you will matter anyway We were already over your head the minute you gave her the keys
the carnage at the base of the canyon was ruinous the destruction, complete Heart took the hardest hit split down the middle in two ragged pieces of desiccated meat devoid of reason, or rhythm
Head pulled her from the car, drug her through the sharp pebbles and burning metal shook with disappointment and carried her to a lesser used path and I followed complacently my own wounds stinging
Brain barely spoke, in all of those tender months-turned-years up from rock bottom winding on trails of drunken malestorms and pious sobriety We are a heavy load
Heart sometimes regains consciousness and clings to the brush, on the side of the trail striking out with bloody, broken hands against the pull trying always trying to get back to the wreckage to somehow make it all work out make that car and joyous ride run again
Brain cuffs her, hard Sometimes it’s just easier to knock her out and keep her from making any decisions then to try and reason with her stitched up pieces
from here on out, my heart must remain bound and gagged, the body in the trunk
Sometimes I like to pick up random notebooks, lying around my desk (there are several) and crack open the pages like looking in a dusty box in the attic. No reference to when or where it was last filled and sealed. Sometimes I find pieces of myself that had scribbled themselves on pages. Once out of my brain, I forgot about them. Sometimes I recognize that girl, shining on the page. Sometimes I long to be her. Sometimes, I am sad for her. Here’s a relic from a random ‘box’. (I should really put dates on these things)
Celestial
Oh, the lengths of letting go I've undergone This sun rises and sets and entire worlds are made and destroyed stars I once thought I revolved around, sure that chaos would run the darkness if ever I left their orbit sputter and fade into nothing
Because the power of a world is the power that I give it The fire of a sun springs from My well The light in the dark is borne in My heart It did not exist before me It will die without me and so it goes ever in the throes of change
So I'm not breathing life into any more poisonous coals they can suffer and wane in the cold of my celestial shadow in the passing of their time and the Rebirth of mine
they will revolve around Me as I am the center they are just cold rocks, caught in my gravity I care not, I notice not if they stick around or become lost and distant sedimentary trash pulled away from me by their own faulted inertia
I have to be honest. I didn’t get a post written this week. I’m actually surprised I’m even getting it done the day of. But if nothing else, I believe it’s consistency that builds skill, trust, and a life in total. So here’s a slap-dash post.
First, I’ve been truly busy this week working on a labor of love: The 2024 Writing Heights Youth Anthology (Name to be revealed soon!) I’m the Youth Coordinator and every month I plan out a lesson and writing prompts and load my heart up with lots of joy and compassion to teach a free class to teenagers about writing. We have about 15 in person and virtual students and the class varies in size depending on the stresses of school and life and other activities. But the work and I are always there (see above about consistency)
So far, the group has put together nearly a hundred pages of poetry, prose, fiction and non fiction pieces about life from their perspectives and stories from their imaginations. And its pretty damn good, if I do say so. Along the way, they’ve learned how to explore different modes of writing, critiquing and editing and what it means to communicate with each other and the world. This anthology is about more than just their first publishing credit, and getting paid for words. It’s about trusting in their voices, and learning that speaking up and speaking out is one of the greatest tools they will ever have to change their world and lead their own unique and beautiful lives.
That being said, I struggle with formatting and arrangement so… the majority of my time has been in trying to get each font just right, within the proper margins, and editing those pesky lines a few more times. The book should be out in July and I’ll let you know when the big release date is. Until then, if you’re interested in donating anything to the organization, you can contact Amy or Jess at director@writingheights.com . It’ll help us offset the costs of publishing, make sure the kids are paid for their hard work, and get the good word out about the program.
Now, I’ve gotta go try to make a table of contents *shudder*. Here’s some poetry.
Reluctant Hope
Every morning I wake with a shuddering light of hope in my chest
Weary from the day before denied sustenance and light in kind Yet, somehow... I still wake with it
It strikes me as foolish to hold on to this frail bird of a thing in the dark cavern of my chest neighbor to the empty heartbeats that pump sanguine rivers to heavy limbs
Still, she settles there a stray who found warmth on an otherwise rough and dirty-guttered street
And when my eyes open she blinks too pulls my granite limbs up like stringed fingers to a puppet and whispers a wind through grasses from far away shores of better days That today today this day will be better
Shuddering, flickering, a loose bulb swinging in a dark room making an arched smile as she dances we'll make today better
let’s make a list of all the things I didn’t do of all the tasks still uncrossed the boxes unchecked and measure my worth by them.
How it had been months since I last dusted well and when some fog of depression lifted and I stared in disgust he breathed a sigh of ‘finally’ relief and happily let me scrub them down even seeing my obvious self-loathing
what did you do with your day? I erased months of my skin cells erased months of myself with disgust at the oily build up of what I’ve become…
but no matter how much grey brown filth I rinse down the drain I’m still here
were that my cells finite, and every time I shed I just became smaller and smaller and smaller until one day I would blink out of existence.
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. And I’m not sure if its an American Capitalism (should be capitalized right?) thing, or a global disease but…at what point did we stop valuing art and creation if it wasn’t…profitable?
I’m an anthropologist at heart. It started when I couldn’t put down the Clan of the Cave Bear series at 12 and continued on through college and my degree, and until…well, yesterday when I read a really cool article about a new Neanderthal skeleton that was recently reconstructed…why does it matter?… well…”Anthropology encourages us to extend our perspectives beyond familiar social contexts to view things from the perspectives of others”. Where was I? Oh yes…art. Humans and art. Do you know how long we’ve been creating art? Paintings on walls, carvings from stone, beadwork, intricate clothing, papyrus, plays (both tragic and humorous…), STORYTELLING…
The point is, humans were born with divine mental capacity. And it extends in times of plenty and scarcity to provide sustenance in a form of mental fulfillment. Then…I dunno…hustle culture happened? Capitalism happened? 1970’s parents started scoffing over martinis that so-and-so’s son wanted to be an *gasp* artist…and what a dreadful shame? That someone would chose to create new and innovative and truthful things over…stamping letters and creating spreadsheets? Because…well…art has no… no money in it.
These birthing pains gave way to an entire generation of people who were forced to work at acceptable jobs and “dabble” in art. Which gave way to people “hustling” in their art and marketing the shit out of their soul’s best guess of humanity, to make it ‘real’ by turning a dollar sign. This is where we are. Art has been reduced to…a commodity. And if it doesn’t sell…it isn’t worthwhile…
There are countries that don’t charge artists taxes. Did you know that? That if they’re producing art (writing, painting, illustration, music, etc.) they are exempt from the toil of paying their country extra money. Why? In America that would never fly! Why should they be off the hook
Let me ask you…What do you do in your free time?
You don’t work more. You don’t put out more spreadsheets, or call more clients, or cut more hair, or take an extra shift for fun…you read. You…go to museums…you watch plays…you visit the botanical gardens… you go to a movie. These little “acts of joy” sometimes even keep you from jumping off a bridge. They inspire your mind, they take you out of the daily grind and…hustle.
…is that not of value? Does feeding your soul not count as a necessity?
I’m on a soap box, I get it. You’ve probably stopped reading. But in case you haven’t, please consider
…humanity has survived and thrived because we have had more than just survival to aim for. There is joy and purpose to feast off of. Art makes life. In the event of an apocalypse… could you even imagine not trying to save the art, the books, the music… the decadent history (and prehistory) of the humanistic howls into the universe that scream… “we are here and we feel”?
What is there to appreciate beyond it? Art brings us together, it connects us, it’s a shared experience and a deeper rooted truth than almost any paycheck. And yet…it has been reduced to: how many followers, how much in royalties, how many people ‘liked’ it, how many people went to your show, what the script writer made and if they have potential for more (we don’t pay if you don’t have at least three seasons)…
I beg of you, if you have funds in the strapped and dystopian financial climate that is America now… support your artists. They don’t even have to be me. Just…find something that you love, that moves you and…tell the artist, write them, speak to them, throw some money their way. Remind them…They are important. They are the story up on the wall of a cave…that proves a defiant resistance to the endless march of time. The voice in the dark, the color in the black and white that speaks; we are here.
We were here.
Art matters. And the only people telling you it doesn’t, are the people that cannot profit from it.
Sarah Reichert Author 