found words...found food

Essay On The Personal by Stephen Dunn

Because finally the personal
is all that matters,
we spend years describing stones,
chairs, abandoned farmhouses—
until we're ready. Always
it's a matter of precision,
what it feels like
to kiss someone or to walk
out the door. How good it was
to practice on stones
which were things we could love
without weeping over. How good
someone else abandoned the farmhouse,
bankrupt and desperate.
Now we can bring a fine edge
to our parents. We can hold hurt
up to the sun for examination.
But just when we think we have it,
the personal goes the way of
belief. What seemed so deep
begins to seem naive, something
that could be trusted
because we hadn't read Plato
or held two contradictory ideas
or women in the same day.
Love, then, becomes an old movie.
Loss seems so common
it belongs to the air,
to breath itself, anyone's.
We're left with style, a particular
way of standing and saying,
the idiosyncratic look
at the frown which means nothing
until we say it does. Years later,
long after we believed it peculiar
to ourselves, we return to love.
We return to everything
strange, inchoate, like living
with someone, like living alone,
settling for the partial, the almost
satisfactory sense of it.

we need more...

i am feeling very moved to acknowledge the women who have given me so many gifts of love, inspiration, a listening ear, a hug, acknowledgment....the list goes on and on....

To my great - grandmothers whom I didn't get a chance to know but heard so many great stories of, to my 2 grandmas who I can't wait to see again this summer. To my own mother, to her sisters and all my aunts. To my 2 sisters, to my 2 daughters. To all my cousins and all their daughters. To all my dear friends who are like my soul sisters. To all of my creative sisters, to everyone who lifts my spirit daily.

THANK YOU ~ from the bottom of my soul and then some...

slowing down

they remind me to slow down
to really really slow down

i always seem to be on the go
trying to get it all done
trying to check things off the list
trying to make sure i'm not left behind

i realize that this is all in my head
i've always been like this
always trying to get around the next corner before....

before what?
to find what?

slow is good
slow is necessary
slow is something i'm learning
slow is something i'm enjoying...little by little

LOOK UP

today ~

the morning opened with a dash to this and that
the morning opened with a bit of sadness
the morning opened with a bit of sun and clouds
the morning opened with helping them
the morning opened with some things not unraveling "just right"
the morning opened with a touch of sweetness
the morning opened with a smile of kindness
the morning closed with a bit of love, understanding and being heard