Waxing In The Waning

May 27, 2015May 27, 2015 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

I have not sought the moon this Spring. Intentionally looked up and made mental notes of its stage and size. Cycle and rhythms. Dimness and brightness. Color and stage. But I should be. Marking and noting. There are lessons there for me in the heavenlies.

Rather I have been looking down and to the side. Over and under the small spaces. Seeking the growing. Cataloguing the seed, the bloom and the fruits of the earth and of the the sea. Miniscule milestones in the garden and broken pieces of shells coughed up by the sea. Roughed up and beaten up and then honed into the beautiful.

Waxing in the waning is a banner over my life. Growing in the dimming. Increasing in the lessening. Smallness is wearing her beautiful crown. She is royalty and majesty. The paradox is grand. The center is a whisper, faintly wooing with her call to pause in the now.

I live on the cusp of exploration. Steps from the salty marsh where so much mystery hides in the folds. The waves weave a hiding place. The tides will unveil, pulling the curtain back for peaks. But stand guard, awake and present. Or you will miss much in the changing of the guard.

The dolphin break through the glass ceiling that is the glassy sea. Looking at us as we strain to study their graceful acrobatics. A day is labeled wonderful if we have spent time with a pod. Or even a mother and her young. We are students of the sea. Since I was a child, I have been near in my soul or body or both to the place of salty mystery. Everything is new. Again and again. I remain a child at the seeking of pieces of joy hidden, then revealed. Revealed and then hidden.

Before I even touch the snow pea to my lips I have savored goodness with my eyes. This is just the crescent. But the crescent is enough. The moon in all her fullness. The pea at her ripest, cooked or raw, eaten or not. Archiving the now, fully alive, fully awake fills us with His goodness. Seeing the holy moments. The holy in the moment. Touching and smelling. Seeing and tasting all that He has created brings us closer to the Creator. And that is where abundance is poured out. Every blade and seed, He made. Every dolphin nose. Wet and sleek.

There is a waning to my years. I do not recall the glory-filled details of much of my living from long ago. I come from Dementia. My mother, my grandmother and my aunt have known it too well. And I may be traveling toward Dementia. I may well be in the line of that fiery disease.

But I am going down fighting for a magnificent, magnified view of the poetic now.

And there is a moon and there will always be a moon. And she will meet me in the heavens tonight. This I know.

For now.

Awake At The Wheel: Eyes Open For Beauty, Wonder and Miracle

May 26, 2015May 26, 2015 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

I have always been intrigued by the beauty of the middle places. The after birth and before the end. The in-between and still in process. And plays a role in this scavenger hunting and archiving. There is always more in the hidden places. Nuances are found in the unveiling, uncovering, and unwrapping.

We are all in the middle of making and doing. We are birthing projects, dreaming dreams, and living out the calling. We are seeing anew, forgetting the past, building bridges to broken places, moving on and healing wounds.

I fell into a place of slow wonder. And I am staying there. The South shows me well its old tradition of living and moving slow. She is the matriarch of my love affair with my new-found wide-awake-ness. I cannot travel back to a time of inattentive living.

I shall not fail to record, remember and ingest. I will not not live aware. I accept the invitation to open every gift of wonder. Every drop of beauty. I am headed into the days of the waning. When the memory fades. But I have come from a faded story. So I am ready to fight to see and record it all.

++++++++++++++++

I confessed to my daughter that I did not remember. Forgetting may be in my DNA. So for today I am recording well and I am searching like a woman in a desperate desert search for a cool we drink of ordinary life. The mirage of beauty is gone. Holographic beauty is reaching out and grabbing me by my senses.

I found a letter in a trunk. The one I keep of old and yellowed letters. Post marks from ’58 and forward through the years and through the times, forgotten. I can go diving into my past there. And I do. I am a stranger in my own understanding. In my remembering, the doing is dim. I am the stranger meeting a woman who is stranger too.

And I told my daughter that I do not remember if I went to the Eiffel Tower at three o’clock as the letter asked me to. A simple rendez-vous for a young woman. I do not remember. Yes, I was living in Paris at the time. And the letter, I explained was written in the days before cell phones and social media. He, an acquaintance traveling abroad, asked if we could meet. The letter leaves me wondering.

+++++++++++

I do not want to miss the recording of the living. The bignesses. Who misses towers in Paris and a rendez-vous in the heart of France. I want to record the intricate, miniscule parts of my life. The beauty, the miracle, the wonder of the small and ordinary will not escape the sieve of my collecting heart.

Determined to live awake at the wheel. I am paying attention. And life is grandiose in its slow and ordinary wonderment.

Join me. We will discover small things.

+++++++++++
Joining Laura Boggess

To The Lady In The Big SUV In A Big Hurry In The Starbucks Parking Lot

May 20, 2015May 20, 2015 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

To The Lady In The BIg SUV In A BIg Hurry In The Starbucks Parking Lot

I know you. And I forgive you. I was in your blindspot. That’s a stretch, but so is grace. (You almost ran into me. Head on.) I almost ran into you. It works both ways. You never slowed down. Let me guess. It was a child-forgot-his-lunch, your child-forgot-his-library-book, you-are-out-of-diapers kind of day. Or it was an I’m-late-for-tennis, I’m-out-of-Tide, I’m-about-to-miss-the-one-hour-dry-cleaning-deadline type of day.

I know you. That’s a stretch. I see me in you is more precise. (And if this is to be at all poetic, let’s be precise.) But I would like to get to know you. Invite you in for tea and a chat on my porch. If you sit, you may never get back up again. An object in motion stays in motion. And you cannot stop or you will collapse. I know your tail-wagging-the-dog pace. I see you speeding through the parking lot in your all -about- your- needs way. It feels like the world is winning and you are losing. Survival of the fittest and dog-eat-dog feel read. It takes one to know one is not just a cruel childish chant.

I know you. If you sit with me I will confess, raise my hand and tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But you won’t. You don’t have time. You rise and shine and race until the break of night. Turn out the light. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

And you don’t remember the glory in your day. The art. It is there. You are missing the good stuff. The best stuff. The important stuff. Pay attention child. The poetry, for goodness sakes. It is everywhere.

The shades of green in the moss. Did you count them? The way the garden has grown at a rate much faster than it did in April. May is full of hope and vegetables. The way your chickens seem to know their names and you. And you believe they have a soul, almost like a feathered dog-soul. Did you see the rain drop race on the window. Did you bet on the drop on the left. Yes, he won.

I know you. I am tempted to come back to Starbucks and look for you. Find you, in love. Invite you for tea. But you won’t be in your big white Mercedes SUV. You’ve traded it up and in. (And I know you. You wouldn’t come anyway.)

I know you. You may have been in a hurry to Bible study, which you lead. No judgement here. No sideways looks. No put-downs. No corrective finger-wagging shaming. No unkind thoughts.

In love. Slow down. In love, you will miss so much. In love. I have walked where you are walking.

My porch is waiting for you, when you are reading to come sit. There are no roses to stop and smell or cliches to toss your way. Grace. Pure grace. I pray you find your way. But knowing grace?

It will find you. Even in the parking lot of Starbucks. Perhaps, especially there.

And that Grande Skinny Latte with two Splenda? There are even better things waiting for you.

I promise.

Love.

Part Two – A Confessional: I Write Imperfect Poetry and Prose

May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

(This is part two of a two-part post. Part One may be read here. You may consider reading it first. Thank you for being here for my imperfect poetry and prose. Grateful to have you here.) And so I write. Today is Monday and I want to write as honestly as I strived to on Sunday. This is not about false humility or humbled low-bowing for the sake of, well, humble low-bowing in and of itself. Let’s admit it: Writers humbling themselves can be a spectator sport on the interwebs. And often it is difficult to discern the writer’s spirit. The authenticity. (Now that’s an over-used word.)

I know in my deep places that my craft, my art, my writing, well, they need time to ripen and mature. I need to read more poetry, write more poetry and listen to the wisdom of beautifully gifted writers. I need to pay better attention. Read more excellent fiction. Sit in the wake of the backdraft of the giants.

And yet, I am still Elizabeth. There is no changing that. I am still the woman who burns with passion for seeing the world in a beautiful, grace-laced way. I am the writer who hears God wooing me into a world of words, with His own. I am a long-processor and so I need to write. Everything that I see, hear and experience needs to run back through the sieve of the pen. But it doesn’t. One cannot sustain quite that level of writing. Or I can’t. But I understand an event a bit better after I write. Most writers do. This is not unique to my writing life.

It is important for me to continue to remind myself and others that I was not always bound to the pen or bent on paying close attention. I have missed a million small moments. Beauty has gone unnoticed. Miracles of creation, tucked into the intricate places have been seen by the attentive ones. But not by me.

I am awake now. I am paying attention. Going digging. Searching for mystery, miracle and wonder. Sharing it with others. And savoring a thousand intricately nuanced moments. Looking for the hidden. And writing toward a more perfectly crafted poem. Bending in to learn to show you in more eloquently written prose.

And so I write.

Expectantly. Honestly. Awake.

I am writing my poetry. My prose.

For us.

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