poetry

Ask Me

~ heroin heroine ~ 1 Comment

“Sometime when the river is ice ask me about the mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thoughts, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made.”

William Stafford wrote these lines. I found his slim book of poetry on a local library shelf. I had not heard of him, and wasn’t particularly looking for another man’s musings on the state of the world. In fairness I don’t know what I am looking for these days. But I opened the book up to the opening stanza of “Ask Me.” And I promptly felt assaulted by my own shortcomings.

Is the life i have led mine? Have I allowed it to be written by the circumstances I have encountered rather than the ones I have sought? Yes. How does one realistically go about firing the ghost writer if the ghost writer is your life’s circumstances?

The mistakes I have made…do I consider them? Not often.
Do I still make them? Repeatedly. Then why have I been so slow to address them? What if the mistakes are not the main problem, only ineffective stabs at solutions?

The friends who help – what difference have they made? And before asking that should I not ask myself, ‘have I fully allowed them?’

And of those who have hurt – did I forgive them too quickly? Or did I willfully forget rather than forgive? Was this the easier path? How much does it matter?

There is community. But paramount there is self. Looking at our collectivity can be a balm but rarely does it provide an individualized answer. Unless that answer is letting go with a passivity that destroys the still unacknowledged self. That, to this old self, doesn’t feel right.

What of the wonders outside of self? I can envision Stafford’s icy river disguising the current below. Stafford confidently states “What the river says, that is what I say.” Well what does the river say? Stafford explains “…the comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness.”

It sounds so encouragingly whole – the river contains what has come before and what will come after. But the stillness, this ice, is it not nature’s attempt to stop forward movement? I realize it is a metaphor: a seasonal pause standing in for a human recess. But isn’t the ice also a disguiser, a preventer and a cold reminder of unchangeable currents?

No need to “Ask Me.” It has literally and figuratively all been said before.

Adult Woman Buys Self Teddy Bear

~ heroin heroine ~ 3 Comments

Buckled into the front passenger seat of my Honda CRV is a medium size teddy bear. The scruffy kind. His golden eyes stare dutifully ahead. Even when I hit snow drifts and his ear shook from the weight of his thick Vermont Teddy Bear tag: he remained resolute.

I bought him earlier today. At a pastel colored factory with a view of snow capped mountains and a sliver of Lake Champlain. When the little dark haired boy at the register asked me who he was for – I did not say for myself. But Bear knew he belonged to me. Upon checkout I stopped them from sealing him up inside a brown cardboard box. No worries, I explained, I can carry him out. As if I was environmentally conscious instead of emotionally needy.

I won’t name him beyond ‘Bear.’
Bear seems about right.

When my kids were little they called their goldfish “fishy,” their mouse “mousy” and their long-haired hamster “fluffy.” I used to laugh at what appeared to be a lack of imagination before chalking it up to language reinforcement.

We also had a gerbil called Blackie. (He was black, of course.) Upon returning home one afternoon my daughter and I stumbled upon an unfortunate scene. His little wire cage had been ripped apart, and he was being freshly spit out from our terriers mouth: his body wet and irreparably broken.

With both hands wrapped tightly around the dog’s collar, my daughter dragged her to the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind them. Rushing to listen, ear to closed door, I heard her say over and over “I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you – but you should not have done this terrible thing.”

My heart broke in that impossible moment.
To have such a little girl.

I look at Bear now and he tells me to stop being so sentimental.
He tells me that it’s just part of the stuff of life – like his own recycled cotton stuffing. Just another

Dog
Gerbil
Girl
Mom
Bear.