When those implants came out there came to me the freedom of a child,
a release from heaving false things around.
I had let a few close friends in, let them support me as I journeyed through,
and felt the warm touch of sunlight in a room I’d shut away.
Nourished and known, it felt like a freefall into something alive,
something for which I’d always hungered
but never knew how to feed it.
I reconnected with the part of myself that had once felt safe
being just as I am.
I even spoke to a few women’s groups, sharing the story and
some words that felt breathed right from the lungs
of a God who knew my name:
“those who look to him are radiant,
their faces never covered with shame,”
I had walked through this shamestorm clinging to that psalm
and dove headlong into the wonder,
exploring the possibility of doing life
without the heavy hidden shame I’d felt since long before I could remember.
Shame for what? I couldn’t say,
but somehow it had always been a thing when I messed up.
And in my mind I’d messed up big by getting breast implants.
With them out
now there came a lightening. A little lilt.
For a season I felt footloose and free.
I prayed some reckless prayers in those days
and I’m grateful for times when my heart was soft enough to mean them.
For years I walked in that honest place inside myself
and then again we moved,
away from that cocoon of safety
where I’d struggled for and stretched out tender wings.
If my old environment had been a sleepy backroad where I could putter in peace,
this new season sparked a highway of colorful creatives and electrified energies
that both thrilled and intimidated me.
I was being accepted by these bright spirits whom I’d admired from a distance,
invited and somehow swept into the current,
and I felt exhilarated.
Like the blackbird, it seemed that all my life had been a waiting for this moment to arise
and now my wobbly wings were growing strong.
In some ways I was starting to fly.
And then one day there came a tearing,
as if I’d flown too close to barbed wire and punctured the dream.
We’d started a family gardening business and now my already busy days
were stretched long with bone-wearying labor after my regular work hours at school.
I blamed the strange pain that developed in my right arm and chest on the hard stretch of a new season,
thinking my body just resented the intrusion and would eventually thrive as I got stronger.
I just need to be stronger; that was the message I kept sending
the shudder in my chest wall when I’d squeeze closed the loppers again and again
as I pruned my way through gnarled tangles of debris.
We grew our business quickly by doing the jobs no one wanted to tackle
and threw myself into it, body and soul.
In the past I’d get a little high out of this kind of push,
a sweet shot of adrenalin with the call to rise.
But this muddy, achy sick kept feeling sicker.
A worried friend suggested some body work and I made an appointment for my first ever massage.
The fatigue and flu-like symptoms I experienced just afterwards
were soon joined by a fever that I just couldn’t shake.
This couldn’t be one big hot mess of a detox, could it?
And after the massage the pain in my arm and chest became only more severe.
When I finally tagged in a doctor it was because I noticed a red streak running the ridge
from my right breast to my right armpit.
I was diagnosed with mastitis.
Mastitis? In a bewildered sounding voice one nurse actually asked me
how long since I’d stopped lactating.
“Almost 20 years,” I sighed.
Yeah. So weird.
The puzzled looks I got from the medical world over the next days
coaxed up insecurities long buried as I waited out the test results
and the gnarly side effects of a potent antibiotic.
I worried that another tumor had developed and was wrecking havoc.
Could I explain this to my new world?
When results were called in: “The lymphatic system under your right arm is severely infected
because it’s completely filled and blocked by silicone,”
I felt shoved down a flight of stairs.
If I’d been suffering from something “normal” I would have reached for the phone, calling out
for prayer and support.
I would have cried on some shoulders and held a few hands.
But this was odd in a way that came with a side of isolation,
and I went quiet, shuffling it into the dark.
Wait.
What about how costly these fine new wings?
What about the beauty of full frontal honesty?
What about how shame is the thief of intimacy,
about all those things you said?
What about being true?
What about defying the silence shame seems to require?
And why does this even feel so very, very shameful?
What’s even going on here?
My tired soul couldn’t rise to the questions.
And so I settled for a “true” that wasn’t honest
and hid away the parts too hard to explain.
The day before my surgery to remove the lymph nodes in my right arm,
I punched some old familiar numbers into the phone,
timidly reaching for a faraway friend.
As we caught up about kids and career and changes, that old hiss to hush came haunting.
It felt good to connect around the sweet stuff.
To tell the triumphs and share the tears that could be shared.
Each time I grabbed at the courage to say the words,
that old longing to just be “okay” rose up and choked them back down.
As we talked, my dog Wally dashed onto the wooden deck where I was pacing on the phone
and began barking at something in the woods.
As I turned, lunging to sort out the chase,
my bare foot scraped up a rough section of the decking
and treated wood chunks splintered off, piercing deeply the ball of my foot.
This wasn’t just a cluster of splinters;
there was a gnarled chunk of wood embedded in my foot
When the Urgent Care directed me straight to the ER,
I explained I was having surgery already tomorrow.
Calls were made and my foot was added to the list of my parts
that needed some serious repair.
Limp, limp…..limp, limp….my aching wings.
I felt as if they may never fly again.
(continued next post)
“I’m learning that there are some things
that can’t be taught in the space
of shortcuts, but rather must be
cultivated on the frontlines-
the long way, knee deep in
mud, fumbling in the dark, or
in the mess and when you are
daring to be beautifully – brave.”
– Tess Guinery
Big squeeze to Cathy Davis (my cousin!) for your name popping up in the drawing.
I’ll be sending you my book with big love.
Thanks for coming around and leaving your kind comments, ya’ll:)
I’ll do another drawing from this post’s comments
and post the winner next time I show up.
Which will likely be sooner now that planting season
is settling into a slower gentler pace.
Hello March and hello you:)
I’ve been courting the quiet and
trying to unhurry about it.
The girl I used to be would’ve been horrified by the gap,
annoyed and shamefaced with all the gaps I’ve come to keep
since my body stopped reliably getting on board
with my plans.
That idealistic sprite has grown into someone far more accepting,
less judgy, even of her own challenging self:)
I want to explain,
to paint a picture that will satisfy the questions
(my own included)
so that it all makes sweet cozy sense.
So far such a paint eludes me.
But I will say “hey!”
And how beautiful it is to see the daffodils pressing
through the cold hard ground, insisting on beauty.
And how brilliant when they come around again, fresh new mornings,
like a pale sky promise being kept.
And how I’ve loved making little bites of art to tuck into paths and pockets
for someones to find and maybe feel hugged by the hope.
And how I’ve grown some new songs and planted some seeds and found some joy
and carved some grooves and said so many thank you’s
for some changes.
And how I’ve come to think that it’s okay when sometimes all I’ve got to share
is a prayer
which is plenty good enough
because of all the times we humans can feel
we haven’t got one.
So here’s one today – join me if your heart nods yes.
( For Ukraine, for the oppressed. For every hurting soul)
Lord,
stand up
where the sirens wail
and make peace be at home there.
Into every racing mind,
in the anxious poundings of each aching heart,
let your soothing
breath
rest.
And our own feet,
may they follow hard
after the muddy tracks
of an incorrigible
hope.
Thanks for joining me – squeezing your hand across the waves
with love and a teary smile.
“Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history,
we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before showing up.”
– Anne Lamott
Stopping by with the handwritten card
that I dream to leave beside your door
with a fragrant little bundle of rosemary, eucalyptus and pine
wrapped in barn red raffia
and maybe some good chocolate and a small tin of tea.
I’d have smiled affectionate as I penned your name
on envelope, giddy that I got to even know you at all.
Love and merriness, it would say,
with big hope that these coming days find you replenished
and refreshed
in all the ways.
And I’d wrap each one in prayer
that the hard, dry shells of tough times
and circumstances
would yield soft to newborn green breaking through
like the strange crackling tenderness of the amaryllis bulbs
drawing my eyes daily to the table
where sunshine coaxes beauty from the dark.
(It’s terrible and wonderful how pain
can stir our roots to deep diving
into new pages
that waited
buried in the breaking
all along.)
Then I’d climb down off your porch,
headed home to rest,
and quickly turn around
to blow a kiss
as I head back to my own place.
Because your spirit is an essence
that turns my heart to look again,
as if a light is sparkling merry through the dark.
Even when I don’t come around here as often
or see you over there doing the wonders that you do,
I feel you and am richer for the sensing.
I remember the you in your places
and I hold that close with love and joy.
A tender merry Christmas and beautiful holiday,
dear one.
May you release like papers to the fire
the heaviness of these long, worn months
“The stars nodded,
The ocean agreed,
The flowers chorused,
Bloom now – bloom free!
Rise, again.”
– Tess Guinery
(And congrats to Lisa Moreland – I drew your name!
Shoot me your snail mail address and I’ll send a copy of my visual hug
to you asap! )
To you, dear ones, who come ’round and read the words
I sometimes write down…
it’s been years of kindness,
of you bringing the balm
that stirred my joy and made my heart feel safe.
On this harsh and prickly planet we navigate,
how did I receive such a gentle listening shoulder
for to process the tumble?
For all of my rough drafts and question-wrestling
and especially in these days when I could barely return the visit
or the nod.
Every single comment has felt like rainwater
to this farmer whose love language
is words of affirmation.
And gifts. That someone takes the time is a gift and I hold it as so.
To be acknowledged feels a powerful thing;
hand to my heart for each verbal flower you’ve left at my door.
Visual hugs are potent
and I’ve received them many here.
Thank you for coming around.
They say you write what you need.
This year I made a book which became the gift I needed to give and receive,
like a bright bunch of flowers left at a door
with a little card dangling from the twine wrapped simple around the jar.
It’s 90 pages of affirmation, little love notes to whisper
“I’m for you,
so for you
….only every always for you.”
As if some gentle mystery keeps drawing your eyes
when the clock marks 4:44.
A God-wink with warm affection for the beauty
that is you.
(this is what grew up in the garden from my one little word
planted early in the year.)
If you know someone who’d feel hugged by this,
I think my little book may be welcome gift.
“But what I thought, and what I still think, and always will,
is that she saw me. Nobody else has ever seen me –
me, Jenny Gluckstein – like that.
Not my parents, not Julian, not even Meena.
Love is one thing – recognition is something else.”
– Peter S. Beagle
“There is no greater gift you can give others
than to acknowledge them.”
– John Williams
(It’s big joy to send a copy of Tell Me Something Good Volume 2
to giveaway winner,
my high school English teacher, Jane Brocious,
who has been forgiving me the liberties I take with the english language
for many, many years:)
One more giveaway before the holidays
– leave a comment and you’re in the drawing
to receive another copy.
And again, thank you for every kind word ever.
With big love.
You can purchase a copy of this bundle of love notes on my etsy site on the sidebar
or at Singing River Studios.
When I married I became a more acceptable thing
in the eyes of the religion I ran from.
Having a good man take me as his wife was a hall pass in this constricting world,
a ticket upgrade that gave me access to better hiding places
from the shame I felt dogged by in my youth.
Too young we said our vows and bought a house
and began making a new story that I believed if I lived well enough
would be strong medicine to erase my old pain.
Just fix it all with fresh paint
and rows of pretty flowers.
Someone was willing to have me,
right in front of God,
and I hoped this proof enough that
I might be salvaged,
along with the bits of my heart that shattered years before
when I let go my baby girl
to release her to another mother
because I wasn’t nearly enough
to remain hers.
So when into our fledgling marriage came another baby girl beautiful,
I loved her with the fury of one who has already lost one child
to her own unworthiness.
I loved her wholehearted and also fearful,
dogged by gnawing hunger to do right
because my heart had heard them hard, words like wrong and unfit
and would my fitness pass muster now these seven years since?
Then along came a boy-gift, beloved and bright,
and then another son of sweetness – all the apples of my eyes.
My young heart spilled wild love; they were my world.
And like a sea turtle returning to the beach where she was birthed,
I scrambled to the knowing tree,
with these bright beings
in tow.
To keep them safe and shield them
because it was the only way I’d known.
(This is my why I offer compassion instead of distain
for those trapped by fundamentalist thinking;
I know what it is to be a mamabear with bloody paw
caught in the steel teeth of that fearful-rigid trap.)
I hear people say how they have no regrets,
how they’re glad for what happened because it made them the people they are now.
I have no grid for that.
If I could bargain for it now, I’d paint their childhoods all over again
in a wholly different tone.
From a fiercely nourishing tree.
And from that Living tree I’ve poured forgiveness
on all the people, and especially myself,
and released that mom-guilt to the wind,
to the sacred river-running-through who does the restoring
of what my own hands
can’t mend.
This whole messy business of being a mother,
and now of loving grown up someones more than actual air,
but not knowing exactly how or how much or
what-just-now to offer….when or if to say the things.
Much of what I make and share spills from this place.
To leave it here for them to someday find
with a hopeful trust that it will splash them good in the living
when they need,
if they need,
but not swamp their boats when they don’t.
It grows my love for all the someones,
for all the beings learning how to be,
and for the Tree who scoops us all into a taller and more tender grace
than a body can imagine.
I often think my kids taught me to love,
or at least showed me how deep love goes.
And this new book – I made it for them.
It’s a smattering of the fruits I would have plucked from living tree
and grinned as the juice dribbled sweet down their chins
those short golden hours.
My imaginary do-over:)
The things I would go back and say.
The fistfull of flowers I want to leave some days at their doors
with a written note “for you” that means “oh how I’m for you,”
“and God only for you,”
and “ever always for you.”
Along with the words I long to have lived with them
instead of the ones I sometimes settled for
in the foreboding thicket
of the wrong-ass
tree.
I know we don’t get do-overs,
but we sometimes get more time.
This is the book I made with mine.
It’s available for you and yours, too.
With love.
Pre-orders open over at http://singingriverstudios.com
“I love
you.
Tell me the words
you need to hear.
And I
will say them.
Over and over and over
until the echo sings
like whispered hymns
in the broken rubble
where churches
once stood.”
– Tyler Knott Gregson
Giving away a pre-order to a copy of Volume 2
to be mailed out as soon as it’s fresh off the press.
Just leave a comment and you’re in the drawing.
And, hey, I realize navigating religious weirdness doesn’t resonate with many.
It’s a niche of a story, mine, but it’s the one I’ve got and so I share
with hope that bits and pieces may be life to another heart
in the throes of healing and change.
Thanks for hearing me.
(continued from previous post….)
I grew up amongst the two trees,
feeling the stirrings of them both.
The living tree was where I knew joy, and a peaceable rest that sprung up
from feeling safe in the
easy just being.
I took refuge in these branches most often alone, when stress and clamor didn’t steal
away the childlike yes it took to dwell there.
But when hot fever of shame sent my ego into storm,
I’d retreat to the thick branches of the knowing tree
where I’d take comfort in my narrative carefully written:
Who to side with – who was good.
And who or what to blame when feeling less than.
To figure it out,
so that I could feel justified and so at least safe
from the fear of judgement that came creeping
like a shadow in the dark,
lurking always when I felt undeserving of love and care.
And here in any shamestorm, if I could play the right part hard enough,
I could get high on feeling like I’d scrambled to a tower, lofty above the fray.
There were perks to dwelling in the tree that seemed to know,
like camaraderie among the approved.
We could be good together,
or against together,
or at least safe together in the camp of the upper-hand.
And even though as a child I had a soft spot for mystery,
it grew harder with every need to prove my right-standing,
to self-protect,
to know and be right.
Yeah I spent years driving nails into coffins
where I buried my wonder alive.
I broke up with the knowing tree years ago,
but I can slip, and I do,
slip fast like an addict with just one sip.
I can be self-righteous
and I don’t want to live there anymore.
Where some god is propped behind a smoking curtain
while little men demand my attention to their booming bluster.
Especially in this season where the wizard behind the curtain seems to be
whipped into a frenzy,
and we’re called out as stupid if we don’t buy.
How dare I approach the great and powerful?
Well I have a thing for this tree.
The living one.
This is where I want to spend myself.
On a love so safe that it’s shelter,
a knowing so wide that it’s wonderment
and a belonging so secure that I’m always and anywhere
home
with One who welcomes and wants me as I am.
And when the mad in me goes bitter,
when fear sends me scrambling for what I worry must be scarce,
when I feel somehow superior
or ashamed,
I can trace it back
to the fruit
I’ve been
eating
again.
Stupid tree.
God,
help me settle like a child into the tree growing up
like a fountain from your heart.
And in places where I’ve drawn back like a stranger to love
because I’ve taken on some lies
and missed the affectionate twinkle
in the only eyes that get to tell me who I am,
may I remember it again
and again
and as many times as it takes:
don’t eat from the tree
made of eyes that can never see or know me.
Again choosing life in the living
while the wind rustles love songs from God.
“I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house
of reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway,
what’s wrong with Maybe?
You wouldn’t believe what once or
twice I have seen. I’ll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one.”
– Mary Oliver
Congrats to Rebecca Lanning on the name-draw.
I’ll be sending out your bundle this week
with a whole lot of love!
Dear where and how I am just exactly now,
(dear reality)
I want to welcome you.
And apologize for the cold shoulder I’ve turned
instead of the warm embrace
that I offer now.
Honestly I’ve been scared to accept you
because you’re a really uncomfortable place for me
and it’s habit to dodge and resist something
that feels as dangerous as you seem.
I want deadlines and answers and,
honestly, I feel pretty homesick for the whole idea of “safe.”
Even if it always was an illusion,
the concept felt comforting and, well,
you don’t.
I wasn’t able to have this conversation with you earlier
because I sort of froze up,
hunkered down from the fears and flares that keep flushing up sudden
like pheasants exploding from a field.
You’ve rattled me, and I thought if I waited you out a little longer
you’d go back to wherever you came from and
then I’d cozy my mind into taking a breather
from the hornet’s nest of dread
that feels sometimes suspended from the dark corner of my imagination.
But here we are instead and clearly you’re here
until you aren’t.
And I haven’t even thanked you for coming
because, honestly, I’ve resented the intrusion.
But I’ve been watching and listening and have to admit
that there is something beautiful about what’s happening here.
Like an awkward yoga pose
that holds and holds until I’m shaking and tottering;
there’s just no way to be smooth about you.
The fact that I’m feeling even more uncool than ever,
more uncertain, more vulnerable,
is something I accept.
But here you are still, and there’s something that I love
about how you’re pressing on my entitlement issues
until I have to feel them angry rising.
I never wanted or asked for this,
never was cavalier about the virus,
yet here I am.
Why can this land for me as somehow not right?
Why do I feel that maybe I should get a different road?
One that lets me feel large and in charge, or at least safe.
What if here and now, exactly as it is, is happening
for me.
( not that some puppet master is playing me to build character or teach a lesson
– I don’t believe that – but this storm may be raising the water levels
in some rivers that my soul will thrill to see).
Maybe I can learn to un-freeze
even in this,
to find the beauty in the breaking.
To shake off the fear (as many times as it takes)
and live wholehearted whatever cards this deck serves up.
Death comes to us all,
but I don’t want to turn my life in
more than once.
So I’m thinkin’ maybe stop un-living some of these hours,
especially since the glass is getting heavier on the bottom
every single day.
I want to meet this moment fully.
“May I meet it as a friend.”
“The moment in which the mind acknowledges,
‘this isn’t what I wanted but it’s what I got,’
is the point at which suffering disappears.
Sadness might remain present but the mind is free
to console, free to support the mind’s acceptance of the situation,
free to allow space for new possibilities to come into view.”
– Sylvia Boorstein
Thanks for having a listen; I appreciate the gift of your witness.
Just to clarify (writing words down = always the risk of misunderstanding):
I’m navigating the challenge of living fully and unafraid in fearful situations and times.
Not suggesting anyone ignore risks.
(I’m masking. And distancing. That’s not even on the table.)