Tag: Solitude

Scenes From A Day In The Life Of A Woman Longing For Christmas Joy

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

Titles should be short, pithy and easy to skim. Oh well. I grant myself grace in the area of this rule, this day. And I am hoping you will too. (Says the poet to herself and to her patient readers).

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The birds come to the feeder late. I know how they feel. Hunger strikes out of the shadows of the gray. And there is comfort by the window sill. I watch them feed as they befriend me on the warm side of the cool pane. I wonder if I bring them even an ounce of the comfort they bring me.

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I am unpacking boxes. They come, thrown my way like confetti. That which is left for the street cleaners at the end of a seemingly unending parade. I cannot not look. I cannot not clean. I press on. Each box a memory. A yearbook from 1944. War was. War is. Change comes. And we still hunger after peace. I open the musty navy blue leather and peek. It is all I can do. My skin and bones and flesh and soul can only feel so much of the memories I must unravel. How can I not honor the dead. How can I bear the stories that are only half way laid to rest. How can I hurry by the legacy of the buried. The dead. Pausing I nod. Pausing I acknowledge. The pages are a hiding place for more. Someone has tucked a dozen black and white photographs inside. And I must look all the way back. It is 1940 something. It is 2014 or something.

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The music plays loud. Then dolce. Then deafening. I do not dare go without. It is my mana, my sustenance, my companion. It mirrors the wait. It echos the longing. It speaks for me. It whispers, even loudly, the reminders of hope. I pluck songs out of the airstream and swallow them. Hungry for the phraseology of hymn and song and poetry of each tune. Without the music these days, I feel I may starve my soul. Hungry am I for the notes to wash over me. Hungry for Christmas in every line. Hope rides on the backs of the black and white sharps and flats. And I find comfort. While I wait for the joy.

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The books can entangle me the most. We have hidden things within the pages. We have used them as a repository for our lives. We have documented our living with their titles. There are series and seasons of titles that remind. Of craving organization and longing to steward well. Of birding and birthing and boating and raising our children. Preparing them for flight, on the other side. To the other side. Away. There are books we read. And books we never did. I grieve. And among them a book from a friend. Written in french. I look for room. I am running out. Of ideas and room. Of patience and space.

But I crack the spine and find her words written in 1978 to me. I cannot weep. For if I start, I may not stop. I am battling emotions which come and go. My heart, it longs for Christmas. It is 1970 something. I went to Paris without her. I remember it well. I cannot weep.

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I cannot escape the banging. The clamoring. The sounds of nails driving into the wood. And I remember the time, 33 years, from my creche with the baby in the manger. Until the cross. And I wonder if the people building this home, know the cost. They do. Monetarily. But every day the nails are hammered. Hundreds. And I hear nearly every one. The work. The patience. The hours. The noise. The sacrifice. Why do they need a home so grand. It looms. And is large. Maybe they, like me, have memories to house. To store. And the books. With no where to go.

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I go back to my unpacking, my music, turning up my favorite carols and hymns. They help buffer the hammers and nails. And I excavate. And unpack. And long, really hunger for Christmas. And pray that the old cravings for more subside. Pray that simplicity will invade my living space. And hope that this weary world will prepare Him room, as Heaven and nature sing.

And I trust with all that I am and all that I have, that Love will come down at Christmas.
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Joining Beth at just be beth dot com for Unforced Rythms

The Blackbird, Checking Through The Pane

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

red winged blackbird

                                                                                                   (photo credit:wikipedia/wikicommons)

If there were a list of rules for who can visit,
A book of names to let some enter into
Communion on the ledge

By virtue of his title
He’d be turned away.

But when it’s quiet
And thought has pulled me deep,
Where worry debates with faith and reason
Yanking tiresome
Pulling piece by ragged piece,
In the dusty corners where the deep grooved tracks from a  childhood
Play.
He comes alone, staring deep within my soul
Feathers meet a feeble friend.
I’ve begun to wait for him.

He sings a shrill of flats or is it sharps.
Tilts his head
I don’t know which, or what he says.
Peers through glass at me then folds a caring nod
As if the feathered feeder friend

Sings his song for me.
Alone.
There is no space for other songbirds when he comes.
His birdsong gurgles, sucks up all the space and time
With a melody of winsome caring,
checking through the pane.

Ebony and streaks of red ask
“Have you found at last your peace on matters on your mind.”

In Which The Quiet is Loud – Letters From The Village

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 13 Comments

a fave of the rain leaves and flowers

She sat in the quiet and collected herself, or was she collected by it. Swallowed up by reflection. And the rain pummeled the tin for hours on end and if she didn’t know better she thought it might never end.

But she peered ahead and she knew from reports, that hours from now it would all be dry. And the sky would find peace and quiet again from the raging rains of biblical proportions. But until then the quiet is so loud while the clouds open up and release their crocodile tears.

She held her own back because it would sound redundant and too cliche to let them roll down the cheek while they fall from the sky. This is heaven’s day to rain down. Hers will wait.

Nestled in the quiet, the disappointment and the dreams she released seem to act out and cry for attention like a parlor clown. Needy and demanding. 

It occurred to her the other day that each day feels borrowed, like a library book which will need to be released back. That ever since she stepped into that place, on the generously other side of the half-century mark,  there is no time like the present for all of it. The days become numbered, fragile and fewer.  Marking them important, marking them royalty, holiday, worthy of celebration. Just for being. Each is exceptional, worthy. It was always that way, only now it truly is. She decrees it as law, for her life.

So she resolves to speak love more, forgive more swiftly and loudly, to create more art for the one single solitary sole that may be  in the path of it, and to laugh.

Like the raindrops lodged in the screen so tight, she holds on to her saline tears and waits for release. Because today there is joy in the drenching wet grey world, and there is hope, though hiding out somewhere. Perhaps in the white and weary sky. 

Because the weather wants to mirror her mood, or is she simply reflecting external conditions.

And she knows at the end of the winter there will be a spring and at the end of the sadness there will be joy. She knows well from the past and the present tells too. There are visible signs in the vine, it will bloom.

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mcvl close up lily fence

On the to do list there,  written in stone, the mundane, though joy-giving things are outlined to be done. There is folding and washing, sweeping and such. There is walking and splashing with dogs in the rain. There is shaking the remnants of last nights bad dream. And peeking round corners for surprises from Him. There are phone calls and letters to a girl in Peru, and making the trip home from school seem special indeed. Homemade soup is always comforting on days filled with rain. And by evening they all will come home once again. 

There are poems to be written and prayers to be prayed.

And she knows from reports that the rain will soon end and the quiet loud will become quiet again.Recede with the waters that look like a flood.

It wouldn’t be pollyanna at all if she said, the sun waits to shine at the end of this day.

(author’s note: this was the end of the post until the phone rang. This is my revised ending.)

And a phone can ring in the middle of a life and speak  words that a mother could just die from, the shared grief shatters the soul like the rain on the tin.

We lost a young friend the age of my son just hours ago. And so fragile and breakable is indeed life and our hearts.

Lord, mend and heal and quiet the loud cries of your people. Now we do join the tears of the heavens with our very own.into every life a little rain

Joining Jen and Heather and Emily Wierenga.

A Still Quiet Place

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

(from C.S. Lewis)  
   Friends, my Sunday hope for you as you see this day begin its end is that you steal away to a quiet place for peace and friendship…wishing you His grace as you……….                  

                                                    

Take a minute,

Seek the silence,

Search out solitude,

Find a friend,

Grab the good,

Rest in quiet,

Think on blessings,

Knaw on words,

Release worry,

Ponder gratitude,

Curl up in the comfortable seat of Grace

And speak your heart to a precious friend.

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