How To Say Goodbye – Don’t

October 31, 2014October 31, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

This is Day 31

Thank you for joining me during the month of October for #write31days. Now that we are ending the series, I am just getting started with this rodeo. Was this a practice drill? Is tomorrow really November 1? More about that later.

To read the series in its entirety, click the page tab at the top of the home page. Spoiler alert, there are not 31 posts. Right, I know, I fell short of the goal. But I don’t really see it that way. More about that later.

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I do not like goodbye’s. Unless I am leaving the DMV or the dentist. But even then I have usually tried to connect with someone in the place and have done some sort of bonding, making it difficult to leave. So goodbye’s, I am not a fan. When I say bonding, I mean I hope I have gotten past how are you’s and how is the weather’s. I am a digger. Though I try to be gentle. If we were having coffee I would be gently going deeper in conversation rather than keeping it superficial.

If you are a regular reader here, it is rare to hear me speak. Usually its a lot of poetry. And I like it that way, but today is a horse of a different color and I am feeling a bit chatty, sentimental and having a difficult time saying goodbye to this series.

Perhaps it is because I am struggling to say goodbye to my beloved old English Lab who is hanging around this thin veil of living and leaving. It is painful and yet there are moments laced with such tender beauty. I am clinging to the moments and praying for a miracle. I am seeing signs of love and life and glory tinged on the edges of her illness. The tail wags, a barometer of life. She rolls on her back and lets me rub her sweet spot, an indicator of emotion. And the food? If she can still eat her beloved peanut butter treats, she’s not going anywhere anytime soon (she says hopefully and expectantly).

So perhaps saying goodbye is best when we focus on the hellos, the gratitude, the blessings of the life and life experiences rather than the void. I do not know how to say goodbye’s well. So do not listen to me. But as I map out the end of this series I want to focus on gratitude.

My best goodbye is a big hello, thank you, blessings on your head.

If you have read here for a season, you have come across my words on aging and dementia. This is a theme of sorts in my life as I walk through this confusing disease with my mother. It is a journey of discovery. Of pain and joy. Of surprise and disappointment. I do not want to say goodbye to who she was before dementia, I choose to say hello to who she is becoming every day within the new paradigm of her life, aging with dementia. Hello, thank you, blessings.

I want to choose to embrace the moment, savor the moment and declare the gratitude in the moment.

I guess the best goodbye is a hello till later.

Maybe that’s the best I can do on this Day 31. I hope this is hello. I hope this is see you in November. And I hope you will be around for the book. Because the book is coming, I trust the timing. And no, I do not know the details, I just know my heart’s desire on the matter. And I hope you will help me explore the newsletter and join me if it is birthed and takes off.

So this is my postcard from me for today. Hello, thank you, bless you, warmly, e.

If I have met you through this series, thank you. If you have subscribed to the blog to follow my writing during October, thank you.

I hope to see you in November and all the months ahead.

I am dreaming of a weekly newsletter which contains writing that would not be found on my blog. If you think this sounds interesting, intriguing or has any merit at all, drop a comment in the comment box and say, “I MIGHT be interested in that”. And if you are subscribing, you will hear me announce here a place to sign up if I go forward with it. I think a newsletter may be fun for all of us. (Rather than a second blog.) Yes, I did mention that as an option earlier this week.

Joy Comes In The Morning, The Wind Is A Gentleman, I Seem To Remember (A Triology)

October 8, 2014October 8, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

Welcome to Day 8.
Welcome to Poetry.
Today my offering is A Triology. Thank you for riding through October with me. The pleasure is all mine.

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I.
Joy Comes In The Morning

Like the morning tube of bad news
Rolled and stuff in cellophane
To protect us from it
Or it from the rain
Count on it, the wad of this and that
Thrown in haste at the end of the driveway
We can count the number of times it
Has failed
To find its way into our breaking hearts
With news of the day

But Joy comes in the morning
On the magic carpets wafting to
And fro, in currents of wind
The limbs
Their launching pads
From which they are sent
Couriers of beauty
Bearers of good news
Fragments of whimsy
Stuck in the autumn’s wind
Draft, their fuel

The next piece
Looks like a Monarch
Lost
And the next confetti
Autumn celebrates its peak

And we leave the paper
In the drive
And choose to let it rot and dry
Become yesterday’s news

Because joy comes in the morning
When we set our eyes on
The beauty of it all
One leaf, two leaves
I cannot count them all
But each one marks
Gratitude
As
On my lawn
They
Fall

II.

The Wind Is A Gentleman

Gentle in his ways
Caressing the wind chimes
With his fingertips
Like a lover on his beloved’s
Cheek
Blows a kiss
Gently touching
The soft and blue veined skin
On the nape
Of her nearly
Octogenarian
Neck
Saying goodbye
Soft and sweet
But just
For now

A gentleman always returns

III.

I Seem To Remember

I seem to remember
She said to me
After the poem was read
Twice
Aloud

We’d ingested every word
Sucked the beauty from the bone
Like marrow on the leg of lamb
Left ravenous with remembering

Poetry, bone-digger
Excavater

Of the buried past

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Thank you for joining me. See you tomorrow, Day Nine.

Why There Is Always A Back Story

September 10, 2012September 10, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

“Say what you need to say,then leave.”

Seth Godin’s words today on his blog intigue me. A lot. His blog is wonderful. If you haven’t discovered it you should. Great insight, wisdom, and just plain good stuff there.

My heart crosses the concept of narrative and story often. I am reading “The Story Factor” by Annette Simmons, the full title of which is “Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling.”

In it is a stirring quote from Jim Harrison, “The answer is always in the entire story, not a piece of it.”

Yesterday’s sermon focused on Isaiah 40:21-31, our story, our life’s narrative. And God, He plays a major role too. As He thankfully does. And did in the sermon. Its a good thing, right. (There is already a back story raising its not-so-ugly-head here. You may want to go to the archives of the blog to read of my love for Him and some of my Christian “story”.)

So much to gnaw on. And I love stories. I seem to learn well when story is used as a tool.

I seem to remember events when there is a story woven like silken threads through a snapshot of life. Is that what story is? Isn’t that what Jesus did when he told parables. Very brief. Very powerful. Very important.

But what of the back story? The parts thinly veiled or left untold. What of the living that lead up to the event?

Are we left to wonder, to guess, to write a narrative around the unknown parts.

“Say what you need to say, then leave.” I love the one, two bunch of the brief. The potency and power in the short. In the very intense, undiluted telling. The concentrated strength of the brief.

Is this why I love the poetic.

Is this the beauty of poetry? Isn’t this the beauty of poetry?

Can the backstory show up in poetry in a way unique to the poetry format.

There is a beautiful backstory to these pictures, of my daughter, taken by The Patient One.

I want to tell you the story.

I think I’ll write a poem. But knowing my bent toward longer forms, maybe I’ll go write a proem, entitled “Salt” because that is why the beautiful winged-one lit on the beautiful girl-child.

It was all because of the salt.

Have I been salt to someone today?

{Will you come back tomorrow to hear more on story, the beginning the middle and the glorious endings. It’s really our life narratives. And aren’t they beautiful?

My heart is about to burst wide open to tell a beautiful one of a man I know. Its his story. It is beautiful. And I will ask permission to tell it this week. What a glorious story he is having? How is your story going.}

Counting gifts with Ann at A Holy Experience dot com.

Today as I think of writing my “Salt” poem, being brief when I write (because your lives are busy and you may not have time to ready the longer posts), and as I dream of how to tell the story of my friend which my heart bends into because it is an adoption story. I have a particular fondness for adoption stories, did you know that?

….. I am counting gifts, quietly, because you may have places to go, people to see, and a story to live.

Go live it with an extra dash of “salt”. I hope I will see you tomorrow.

Linking with Laura at Laura Boggess dot com and Michele at Michelle DeRusha dot com

And L.L. Barkat for In On And Around Mondays

The Morning Art Gallery of Life, A Grand Opening

August 27, 2012August 28, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 8 Comments

The Web of Life

She opens her gallery in morning bright light early

Displays God Art.

First fruits offered in obedient love.

Weaving with legs strong graceful

Navigating strength,symmetry

Strong small presence, centered

Delicate lovely home made art.

Like a prayer labyrinth she walks alone, in her, on her,

Home made strong, receptacle of nourishment

Quiet delicate web net of protection.

Quiet masterpiece holds fast in love

Holds strong in love.

And in woven winsome beauty, she makes her way through,like a maze.

She waits, heartbeat holding watch.

Glimmering gleaming hopefilled web

Offering order in chaos,

Perfectly alligned with His will for her.

Perfectly imperfect, seeking Grace

She hangs in the net web,

Soul centered place of still waiting waving in the gentle spirit breeze,

Peace-filled knowing

Anchored here, anchored there.

No fear takes space, finds a space in the perfect web of peace.

No angry broom will knock down, rip down, tear down.

Grace for her, grace for all.

She and her God art catching the morning light.

Masterfully weaving this artful way through the life web.

Tied in obedience to the One who teaches art of making the way

through a beautiful web maze, the story

that is her sparkling sticky, glistening fragile, light-catching, light-relfecting,

Hidden to some,

Yet visible to the lover of Beauty, God Art

A Hopeful, graceful web.

Catching nourishment for the soul.

Counting Gifts and Linking with Ann at A Holy Experience dot com and with Michelle on this Monday.

And with Laura Barkat and Laura Boggess for In On and Around Mondays and Playdates at the Wellspring.

*A lost cross purchased in New York, found this morning, a treasure found on the floor.

*Beautiful time with volleyball family, winning, losing, fellowshipping

*Long day in the creek after church, salt, sea, friends, The Patient One, counting the gifts of close finish-your-sentence friends and a day on the water and in it too.

*Encouragement coming in so many different forms, delivered sweetly in love

*New connection with old friend

*The Patient One giving gifts, a lawn cleaner and tidier and the gift of time lovingly spent together

*During woship, watching The Patient One sway in the breeze of praise, singing sweet the songs of worship

*Planning a Monday night family dinner- Joyfilled family meal, with hopes and dreams to play our High/Low game again. (naming the highes and lows of our day).

*Making plans for a trip to Haiti, and feeling the call in Peace and in Love.

*Receiving my Compassion International Packet in the mail with the precious picture and information on the sweet sweet girl I am privileged to sponsor. So hopeful about her future and a budding relationship.