No one told me it would be like this— how growing older is another passage of discovery and that aging is one grand transformation, and if some things become lost along the way, many other means show up to bring me closer to the center of my heart.
No one ever told me if whatever wonder waits ahead is in another realm and outside of time. But the amazement, I found, is that the disconcerting things within the here and now that I stumble and trip my way through, also lead me gracefully home.
And no one told me that I would ever see an earth so strong and fragile, or a world so sad and beautiful. And I surely didn’t know I’d have all this life yet in me or such fire inside my bones.
~ Susan Frybort ~
I think this says it all. The perfect complement to Monday’s post. The intention for this next span of life I’ve been gifted. Perhaps fitting for you, too.
Thank you for your kind birthday wishes, dear friends. Much love and kindest regards.
the ridged terraces below Trevi, Umbria – a classic Italian hilltop town la Via di Francesco, September 27, 2023
SILENT BRAVERIES Sometimes it takes looking at your struggles to recognize the depth of your courage. To be in awe of what it takes to face real fears, break old patterns, and climb the steep ridges of your own private mountain. Even the silent braveries carried out over time cover the ground all around you.
– Susan Frybort – Look to the Clearing
From my filed and saved poems, this is one in keeping with my current writing, both here andin recent poetry. The threshold crossed into a new terrain, one I’ve coined “an eldering landscape,” where facing real, albeit old and ancient fears; identifying, breaking and grieving old patterns; challenging roles and rules; initiating courageous conversations; climbing my private steep mountains and traversing barren landscapes – all various way markers to a destination unknown.
Truly my camino, caminho, cammino – the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian ways. Truly ones that each of us walk, in this and the various stages of our lives. Walks wherein we call upon, become, and cover the ground with our respective silent braveries, revealing the way for each other.
HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SOUL The longing for things that you could not have, the yearning for places you were not destined to arrive. Wistful memories of what was not ever meant to be. Regret for not being who you thought you would become. These hallucinations of the soul are agonizing prisoners that must be pardoned and released.
Clear the room. Open the door and let them leave. And in this space, you’ll paint a glorious existence of being here with presence and contentment for what truly is a relevant and meaningful life.
– Susan Frybort, Open Passages –
Still in the first month, Frybort’s poem speaks to me of a tender way of approaching the new year. Not bound by resolution making, or even fixed on a word for the year (though comfort, grace and gratitude continue to accompany my focused breaths), the imagery of pardon and release, of allowing discontent an open door from which to leave, invite a softening and deepening into possibility. Evoked too for me, is a favourite from Rumi, The Guest House, as rendered by Coleman Barks.
It’s been a challenging month. I’m happy to be home to days that are ever so slightly growing longer, especially in the late afternoon, and to temperatures rising to comfortable from last week’s frigid depths. My family and I are relieved that my mother is home, regaining her strength.
Discerning “guides from beyond” from “agonizing prisoners,” balancing hospitable welcome with unabashed leave taking, giving gratitude its due, we all make our way.
It’s winter. I don’t think this is a premature pronouncement for given last week and the forecast for the next, temperatures are hovering at freezing or below with wind making it feel colder.
sea buckthorn path
We have snow. It is not melting. As is the way, I went to bed last Sunday night to wake Monday morning to the balcony lip edged white while our laurel leaf willows remain fully leafed. A seasonal oxymoron.
Those three days of outdoor pickleball that helped me land after a month of summer, being outdoors all day, every day for thirty days, are a memory as nets are now down and indoor courts filled. I went back to aquafitness last week. While I love how I feel after the workout, I’m not sure how I’ll fare wet in winter. In twenty plus days it’s lovely. In twenty below that’s another story. I missed Friday’s class… just too damn cold after having walked 8 km on Thursday in a deceptive wind that chilled me to the core. Cold hands, the bells palsied side of my face especially impacted. It meant I didn’t walk with my Camino group on Saturday. But yesterday the sun shone, the temperature rose a few degrees above zero with little wind, so I ventured forth.
Intent to do my best to maintain the fitness I gained this summer and trekking in Italy, I knew I needed to resume walking in the neighbourhood. Without Annie. I’d been avoiding this all summer, using my river valley training as a necessary though convenient distraction. Yesterday I woke up feeling sad. Met my dear grieving friend for breakfast and once home, after a couple more hours’ avoidance, I took my grieving self by the hand, ear buds and downloaded poetry podcasts at the ready, and walked one of our favourite routes through the golf course, now void of golfers and geese, with ponds frozen and fairways white.
For the first while I listened to Padraig recite a poem, interview a poet, and then recognizing this, too, was a distraction, I listened to myself, my heart, the wind, my grief. I remembered all the spots Annie would sniff, and how she’d wait for me to capture a photo. I wondered about a photo this time, to mark the day, the occasion, but nothing shimmered. Except my memories of walking with Annie.
Annie’s right paw – her signature, my memory
Tonight, I’m on the docket to read several poems at Edmonton’s Stroll of Poets monthly gathering. I remember years ago attending to listen to a now deceased friend read hers. With ten minutes allocated to each of four readers, I’ve chosen four, one recently composed as tribute to Annie and my realization that in an ironic twist of fate, her sudden passing in June gave me unfettered time to train for walking the Via di Francesco. Another poem, inspired by a dream, tells the story of the grandfather I never knew.
The veil is thin. I find myself thinking of friends who have passed…friends who are grieving the passing of mothers and sisters…ancients and ancestors…angels…Annie. Wars that continue to devastatingly claim thousands of innocent lives…thousands of children.
A friend enquired and I can say that yes, my molecules are settling, integrating, recalibrating. I’m grateful to be picking up life’s threads that needed to be put to the side, that the words I felt had died with Annie’s passing are now returning.
And with this poem I am further consoled:
BLESS ALL BRAVE THINGS
the prayer I cannot pray. the words that rest unspoken. the feelings that can’t be named. the grief that bursts wide open.
the cry that turned to laughter. the smile that broke the ice. the pain that was cut off. the poem I couldn’t write.
life, bless all the forming things that escape or remain in me; those resisting to be seen, and the ones that risk coming out as brave beginnings.
A Wabi Sabi Life 