Thankful Thursday: Pick and pluck

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Call it what you will; I dub it Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things.

I am grateful for the sunny hour I spent with youngsters in the garden. Seashore Family Literacy's after-school programs are back in session and I am happy to be immersed in lively minds and tender hearts.

Yesterday brought a glow of autumn sun and willing spirits. We began our session, as we often do, by picking poems from bulletin board pockets. Can we take more, they asked, more than one?

As if poems were candy, we filled our hands and headed to the garden. Large rocks made for perfect poetry seats as we read to ourselves and to each other. Much to our delight, two girls chose the same poem: Praying by Mary Oliver.

In the garden, in the light, as they stumbled over new words, the 9 and 10 year old voices floated like a song. Just as I thought the reverence could not increase, the youngest girl, in a small voice, said, I like the part where it says pay attention.

We each agreed and wondered how we could pay attention to the world. With journals in hand, we explored the garden's bounty: expanding squash, heavy-headed dahlias, the scent of rosemary as we ran our fingers along what one writer described in her journal as, spiny green spikes reaching like hands.

Another youngster, fueled by the beauty of bleeding hearts, wrote, If there were flowers in my heart I would water them every day with my tears.

On this day, there were no tears. Only flowers to pick. Again, they asked: Can we take more? More than one?

And with gratitude for poetry, gardens and young minds, I said yes.

Praying

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

— Mary Oliver

Mean Disease

My friend is buying baby food for her father.

There are 168 hours in a week, she tells me.

Even with help and hospice, that's a lot of days and nights to live wide awake.

He falls out of bed. He can't chew. It's too much. The nights too dark. The days too long. She cobbles together a routine of helpers and hospice and friends and still there are too many hours with the slow loss.

You never know what you're signing up for. I wouldn't not care for him, she says in a whisper, but Alzheimer's is a mean disease.

I wish I didn't know today is World Alzheimer's Day. I wish September 21st meant nothing. But increasingly — enough to make a day of it — more of us know about this mean disease.

Here are the sobering facts:

- One in two people over the age of 80 have Alzheimer's.

- People as young as 40 have been diagnosed with the disease.

- Someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s every 70 seconds.

My grandpa, Bart Myron, a wheat farmer, lived for decades with an eroding brain. He was one of the 5.3 million people who suffer — whose families suffer — with Alzheimer's. On this day I wanted never to know, I think of him, and my friend's father, and the increasing numbers of us walking through long days and sleepless nights, living with this mean disease.

Erosion

Who knows how

the mind files memory?

 
missing pieces, your

history, this life, lies

three states to the south --

 
lost rusted cars, bindweed

decay in the sun

 
wild geese fight winds

that rattle shingles, shake doors

 
your vacant eyes sort

through weeds, neglect

 
memory somersaults

lands against antelope

bones blanched in desert heat --

 
futile to search for data:

the face of a son, the hand of the wife

price of wheat, words   

any words to rise, rescue us

 
from this wait

this long silent loss.


- Drew Myron

This poem appears in Beyond Forgetting,  an award-winning collection of poetry and short prose about Alzheimer’s disease written by 100 contemporary writers — doctors, nurses, social workers, hospice workers, daughters, sons, wives, and husbands — whose lives have been touched by the disease. Through the transformative power of poetry, their words enable the reader to move “beyond forgetting,” beyond the stereotypical portrayal of Alzheimer’s disease to honor and affirm the dignity of those afflicted. To read sample poems, see a schedule of upcoming readings, or purchase a book, visit www.beyondforgettingbook.com.


 

 

Carrying a Ladder

We are always
really carrying
a ladder, but it’s
invisible. We
only know
something’s
the matter:
something precious
crashes; easy doors
prove impassable.
Or, in the body,
there’s too much
swing or off-
center gravity.
And, in the mind,
a drunken capacity,
access to out-of-range
apples. As though
one had a way to climb
out of the damage
and apology.

— Kay Ryan



Thankful Thursday: Lips, Sun, Run

It's Thankful Thursday!

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things that bring joy.

This week, I am thankful for:

Lipstick
From the department store or drug store, I love them all. Lipstick brightens my face and my mood. Such simple pleasure for such little effort.

Sun
On the Oregon Coast, admitting that I hunger for sun, dread grey, and struggle through rain brands me a spineless outsider (even though I was born in Portland!).  But I can't hide, fake, or pretend any longer: Sun makes me happy, gives me pep, gets me out of bed, out of my head, and into life. I am thankful for the two days of summer — i.e., blue sky, full sun, 70 degrees — we had last week.

Run
I never imagined my weak lungs could carry my thick legs out of the house, down the hill, to the beach and back. As a severe asthmatic with a missing half lung, I am beyond grateful that my body and mind have colluded to allow me to run. Thank you, lungs, for expanding just enough to give me breath and hope.

 Are you thankful? The gratitude movement is growing. Join me in welcoming other Thankful Thursday writers:

Kelli Agodon

Leah Dieterich

Reveal. Withhold.

I'm old-school. I grew up drawing distinct lines to divide professional me and personal me.

As a young reporter, I didn't complain about covering a city council meeting that would stretch late in the night and leave little time for a romantic dinner. I didn't talk about my health, my debt, and things that kept me awake. I was a professional and didn't reveal much.

But technology changed me. Facebook, Flicker, Blogs — these forms of communication have blurred the lines between personal and professional and I am not navigating well.

Each day I question How much to reveal? How much to withhold?  In these expanding forms of connection, and these widening circles of 'friends', sometimes it seems we're all trying too hard to be heard. Look at me! Look at me! Is all this sharing just self-promotion in disguise?

Last year, exasperated and overshared, I quit Facebook. I didn't miss it, really, but I did migrate back.

And yesterday, for my husband, on our anniversary, I baked a pie and wrote a poem. I wanted to share  the poem here but all night I tossed and turned and wondered why. Why do I want to share something so personal? Wouldn't doing so diminish the fragile, intimate space where our real lives thrive?

Sometimes on Facebook, when I see photos of babies or airing of struggles, I cringe. It's too much, I think. Keep it safe in that secret place where only you have access to the details of your heart. Other times, I  am greedy for those nuggets of personal information that will give me a glimpse of who you are, what makes your life.

How much to reveal? How much to withhold? The questions press at me more each day.