GRAVE LESSON

Last week, I went to my son’s grave with the pumpkin I bring him every Halloween. As I do each time I come to him there, I stand quietly and read the inscription it took me a year to find for the stunning piece of Westerly granite that stands guard over what is left of his body.

And think not you can direct the course of love,
for love, if it finds you worthy, will direct your course.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

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OASIS

This is Stella, a day after her surgery (she was spayed, a routine procedure but nonetheless traumatic for both of us). I sent this picture to a friend and she responded, “That’s exactly the way I feel right now.”

I think many of us, too, can relate.

It’s hard not to feel despondent about our lives, our losses, the pain of the world.

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SUSPENSION

That’s Stella, our black lab, every morning. Our friends love to climb the trail near our house and they often come with their two labs and pick her up to hike and swim with them. But they don’t come every day.

No matter, she waits each morning, laser-focused on the driveway, ears attuned to the particular sound of their Subaru Outback. After her breakfast, there is only one thing she cares about.

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KAMALA

I’ve felt so depleted for the last few weeks that I’ve not been able to summon the energy to write a new blog post. I had wanted to write about John Lewis and his challenge to all of us to build what he called the “Beloved Community,” to get into “good trouble,” and the need for us to stand up for what we really believe. How important it is to tell the truth. Bush and Clinton, as well as the others who spoke at his funeral were so eloquent and inspiring, and I cried to hear and see Obama, to know so deeply what I’ve been missing. I wanted to hang on to that feeling of inspiration and yes, love. And to share it. But then the funeral was over and we were back to gratuitous bullying, idiotic tweets, deadlocked Congress, Qanon-believing potential Congress people.

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Outrage, Again

I was going to write about something else for this post, even had it started—the wonderful Wyoming School For Girls where I made a connection when I was out at Ucross Foundation for a residency in March. I’ve been doing writing workshops with them on Google Hangout, and I wanted to tell you about how much they’ve meant to me and seem to mean to the girls incarcerated there. The director, Dixie Fox, with whom I’ve been dealing over the complexities of doing such an intimate experience virtually, is a stunning example of what a facility for troubled girls needs in a leader. I am mightily impressed with her and hope to continue to volunteer as a writing group facilitator with them until I get back to Wyoming, hopefully next spring. It feels so good to be able to reach out to these young women with all the poems and stories of my girls and know how inspired they may be by them; how I have missed this work.

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