Glass Heart Waltz

PROLOGUE: 8:57 pm. Saturday. A quiet St. Patrick's Day for this writer. Sidelined by a sore back and achy head, the revelry is in the mind. Also, fragments of the past drift to the top of the pond.

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A song thought over, cruel as a frozen stiletto slipping between the ribs. The strains of it drift in on a caustic electron breeze to scour the heart. Something so intangible yet so hurtful. Where is the off switch? There is no plug to pull, no breaker to trip, but that has not stopped the attempt to do both. Fighting the inevitable invisibilities in a frantic ten rounds of shadow boxing, man , is a recipe for bleak exhaustion. There seems to be no stepping out of the ring.

To dance or to box? What is this choice that is no choice? The body a leaden meatsuit, the mind a black night cradling a box of wet matches. Sunrise over the ocean brings light to a sky colored as a fading bruise. Knowing how to feel about this is a difficult exercise. Confusion, angst, and fatigue conspire against clarity of thought. Perhaps the best that can be done is to swallow as much breakfast as would stay down, then push the body into the day in hopes of getting something done.

The heart is another matter. It is glass, crystalline and brittle. It wants to beat but cannot escape the chains of an amorphous, supercooled liquid bearing the appearance of solidity.

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EPILOGUE: The waltz was scored almost exactly one month ago, in a different weather, in a different mind space. There is distance now. The space-time coordinates have changed, and hence the perspective. The ghostly breezes of those words still shift at the edges, but the mind space is clearer, brighter, it may be said. This is good. It is comforting. Progress has been made on remaining in the now. For this, the heart is grateful and becoming flesh.

Sunday Meditation #47: I Heard the Meadowlark Sing

I heard the meadowlark sing to me

From upon a roofline high

Tall grass whispered back in chorus

Breathless upon bended knee

Azure dome of heaven

Wheaten cathedral of earth

Wind an ethereal Mass

Sunrise upon my soul

Lungs fill with coolish air

I drop my small machine

Thanks escape parted teeth

I heard the meadowlark sing to me

Sunday Meditation #42: Sketchy

Christ, I don't reckon I know what has gotten in to me. Springtime on the headland is usually a time of joy, even for a a child of the fall such as I am. The sea looks different, feels different, even smells different. Maybe it is life blooming a bit in the shallows and the depths, stirred up by the rolling of the waves. This spring, I am different.

More restless than usual. Head full of ideas that never make it past the daydream stage. The slush of thoughts not making it to the ice of clarity. The proof is in the scratch papers, notepads and detritus piled up on my desk. They form a dune banking up to the windowsill. The paper rolls and bleeds into the dunes. It is a curious thing to have a sandbank comprised of the ideas illuminated in ink that ultimately is wasted. The scribe in me feels shame at the thought.

There is no avoiding it. Truth in front of me. The very notepad under my right hand bears little in the way of words and much in the way of idle sketches. Sketches of what, some may ask. I cannot say other than describe them as architectonic, formal follies. Mostly they depict variations on cubic volumes, shaded with crosshatches. Towers? Obelisks? Cenotaphs?

That last idea makes me chuckle. Cenotaph is fitting. Little monuments erected in honor of ideas buried elsewhere in my mind, or somewhere in the cottage around me. The sea, even! The sea. It waits there beyond my windows. Jade swells reflecting an unquiet mind. My hands stop shaking long enough for my attention to be drawn to the sky. A mottling of pewter clouds rolls in. Beneath them I can see the gauzy stain of rainfall. Spring has been wet here so far. Much has been washed away under its maulings and caresses. This I know.

The cottage fills with that special light of overcast as raindrops spatter and hiss on the glass panes. It comforts me in a way that sunlight and blue sky do not. My hand continues to sketch. I am building something. No, I am searching for something that I have lost the words for but my heart seems to know from someone I once was decades ago now. I recognize some of the drawings from my adolescent years, the younger me sketching out abstracts in blue and red and black. Somewhat confused by what they could mean, not knowing how to quit drawing.

The paper fills with fragments of someone I used to know. I can see him there. The rain falls harder, and weariness floods my gut and head. I watch the drops fall into the sea where perhaps they trouble it just a moment. But the ripples vanish as the sea rolls on. I take that as a lesson for my heart, rippled and anxious, but rolling on.

Magpie Tales 265: Miracle

Image via Magpie Tales

Our mystery came clear

upon Earth's awakening

rousing from young slumber

changing, molting, shedding skin

My golden height

Her fecund depth

Bind us to our miracle

Mother Loam

May, blooms unfolding,
Her breath, her blood shaped you
She was your first house!

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For my Ma, the earth what gave me roots

The Other Blooms of April

Yellow is the glow along the boards of the fence, a slathering of cheer against the staid solemnity of silver-grey pickets at the back line of the yard. The forsythias are in bloom. Their winsome little heads rock gently in a mild breeze. It is to make one smile, to push back the unspeakable violence that April seems intent upon using to suffocate our hearts.

Violence inflicted on a broad spectrum of individuals and groups, as borne out by this terrible roll call of which I am sure is incomplete:

April 14th, 1865, Washington, D.C. - Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
April 4th, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee - Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
April 19th, 1993, Waco, Texas - Siege ends in horror at Branch Davidian compound
April 19th, 1995, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - Federal building bombing
April 20th, 1996, Littleton, Colorado - Columbine High School shootings.
April 16th, 2007, Blacksburg, Virginia - Virginia Tech shootings.

To this we add April 15th, 2013, Boston Marathon, where bombs add dark punctuation to a calendar already swollen with the gravidity of fear and death.  I cannot escape T.S. Eliot's characterization, in his poem "The Waste Land", of April as the cruelest month, while he wrote that for different reasons, it seems no coincidence that the first part of his poem is called "The Burial of the Dead". April it seems is becoming the time for tragedy.

What is it about spring that brings out the madness and hatred in mankind, seeking fulfillment in the maiming and killing of those whose only crime seems to be one of existence in this world? What possesses others to believe that their ideas and beliefs of how the world should be justify the carnage they inflict whilst pursuing their evil visions?

Whatever the motives behind the crime, it doesn't change the outcome for the wounded and the dead. That is not to say we should not ascertain why someone would do such evil things. Understanding and identification will help in catching the bad guys, or stopping them before it is too late. In the long view, does the motivation ultimately matter? I haven't answered that question to my satisfaction. I do not know if it can be answered properly. What seems most important is that we care for our fellow humans, and keep living life.

I am stunned and saddened by this litany of horror. I know that hatred and ill-will are perennial to the human condition. With the passing of storms and changing of seasons, we always hope that those weeds will never come back. Yet they do. It is enough that we not give up on pulling them out, however. We musn't give up. Otherwise the weeds will win and our gardens will revert to waste lands, while we retreat to our caves to nurse our shattered hearts with not much hope for the future.

April may be a cruel month, I know. There are too many examples of the dark side winning out. But April is also spring, and love and light burst forth in spite of the darkness. In spite of the bad, there is, there must be, more good in the world than willful madness will ever defeat. I hold that idea close to my heart, watching the yellow glow along the fence, dreaming of spring for evermore.

March Madness? No, Angst.

Ladies and gentlemen, I could not let the first day of March go unwritten. My creative output here was at an all-time low in February, and that bothers me quite a lot. The last post? That, dear readers, was my 1,000th piece on Irish Gumbo. I found that amazing and deflating. Hard to believe I've been doing it this long, but I feel like it could have been better.

Gah. What do I know.

Be that as it may, I've had many things laying claim to my time. I have been diffused, as it were. Stuff and Things to be dealt with, questions to be answered, souls to be searched. There are some questions of Art to confront, and I informally owe some information to some folks who have been kind and supportive of me on my angsty investigations of this here life of mine.

It's March. I didn't want the first day to pass without note. Hopefully, the promise of the coming Spring will catalyze my back-burnered ambitions, and I will fill these electronic pages with more of substance. And before I forget...thank you for reading.

Through Which Roars the River

It was a few days ago at breakfast that the white hole opened up in the center of my mind to pour forth a new light of wonder into my dormant heart. Across from me sat Love; I walked over that bridge Einstein had created for me and into a new creation. The river gushed forth to sweep me away. I was near speechless, on the verge of tears of joy. Love in all its glory seized me by the heart and refused to let go.

That river of the mind found its temporal twin today, under a sky of pure cerulean punctuated by the commas of swallows swooping through the air. It was pressure in my mind and heart that pushed me out of my new home with cameras in hand. The pressure, the call to find some water, or train tracks or something like them. I found my way down to the banks of the Missouri river where it flows past downtown Kansas City.

It was there that the great blue and the breeze and the slow dance of the river made it clear to me that change is inevitable and often necessary, ever the more so in the case of finding peace within ourselves and love without. It is up to us to guide that change where possible, and go with it when it is ever so larger than our hearts.

The Missouri showed me this. Mighty bridges cross it. Its banks have been shaped by the hands of man. There are gates and valves, sluices and levees placed in an effort to manage cosmic uncertainty as manifested by water. On a peaceful day, under a bright blue sky, in the company of the occasional branch floating lazily along one might be tempted to believe that this placid river could not possibly ever be out of control.

But look closer. Look at the marks on the riverbanks. The driftwood here, the odd bit of flotsam there. See the rusty barrel five feet above the water line, the faint red paint set off against sun-dried silt baked to the color of pewter in the Midwestern sun. It is then that the old high water marks make themselves known. The depth gauges painted on the piers of the bridges suddenly come into focus. They look worn. They look used. Obviously, something swift and fierce has passed this way.

That swift and fierce thing swept over me again today, out there in the sun. I stood still, camera poised to capture an elaborate combination of light and shadow that had caught my eye. The instant the shutter clicked I flashed back to that morning at the breakfast table, across from Love, and the switch flicked in my heart. The white hole opened up to pour forth its energy of creation and it spilled down into my heart there on the banks of the Missouri, flowing down the levee and into the water, the circuit, it closed and the energy of the earth, the sun, the river, the Universe it poured back into a thousand fold, I knew it, I knew it there and then, I felt its majesty, I felt love all around me with my feet on the ground and my head in the sky and my heart in the hands of another, knowing beyond a shadow of all my doubts that we must tear down the dams we build in the rivers of our heart, risking the flood for the fullness of being…

…We must, dear ones. We must undam the rivers of heart-space-time to let them burst forth and carry us to where we can find that which gives us life, that which makes us human. Embrace the singularity. Cross your own event horizons. Come out the other side and into Love.

Spot Of Light

It's been of late a tough row to hoe here in the People's Republic of Gumbolia. Feeling a bit like being trapped in the northeast quarter of a tropical storm. My general outlook has been, shall we say, less than sunny.

I was challenged recently to find at least one good thing about my day. Just one, as an exercise in looking for the good in life.

Tonight, I stood at my kitchen windows, rubbing my face with my hands in an attempt to wipe away the anxiety.  I looked between my fingers, outside, where a smudge of pale bluish-purple caught my eye. I looked closer.

The lilacs are in bloom. I think I actually smiled.

Sunday Meditation #20: Weeds Grow Again...As Do Souls

Some thoughts for this Easter Sunday, born in dirt and grown in pensive light...

I feel unqualified to speak in depth of the significance of Easter. Others know more, and have said it better. The commentary is too well known for me to illuminate it further.  Instead I will speak of rebirth on a small scale, the kind to be found in weeds and dirt, flowers and sunlight, on a rather ordinary Saturday.

My mind had been caroming about, never sitting still. A shame, really, on such a beautiful day. I flitted from chore to chore. I folded laundry, swept floors, caulked tubs. Yard work beckoned for the second day in a row. I finally could not take the confines of my house any longer and fled to the less claustrophobic setting of my backyard. It was white gold sunlight under a cerulean sky. The lessening of tension in my shoulders and gut were immediate, even as I drew on gloves and hefted the weed whacker.

The weeds were thick in the back planting bed, to my chagrin. I set the machine down, considered the thick mat of creeping plants that were threatening the little Japanese maple I have come to love. I bent down and with both hands began to tear at the runners. The crunch of leaves, snapping of twigs sounded oddly soothing in symmetry with the bird songs and wind. I pulled and clutched. I relaxed.

As I cleared weeds, I felt a lightening of spirit, wonderful and mysterious. The weeds I am sure saw no friend in me, but for the first time in a long time I felt no grudge against them. It felt good to clear, to uncover, to make things right. I finally understood that if the weeds were to have a purpose other than being a nuisance, it was to make me appreciate the joy of simple tasks with measurable results.  This rejuvenated me.

We can all rise again, in ways big and small, and it is perhaps the small ways that underpin our lives. I give thanks for the joy of small things.

Sunday Meditation #19: Silence and the Saint

Saturday night was a curious mix of sound, celebration and intent.  At the local tavern, St. Patrick's Day festivities were in full swing. A block over, in the community hall on the town common, the sounds of what may have been Tejano or mariachi music thumped loudly through my window. I had no desire to be at the tavern and I have no idea what they celebrating at the hall; perhaps a fundraiser or a wedding reception.

I'm pretty sure that the people at the tavern were not really celebrating the life and memory of St. Patrick. I didn't really expect that they would. But still, the thought of faux-Irish music and green beer...well, it gave me no reason to want to be there. As with many "holiday" celebrations in this country (Cinco de Mayo also comes to mind) the rapacious nature of consumer culture turns it into yet another overbearing push involving overindulgence in alcohol and food, stretched taut over a paper-thin surface of incomplete understanding. Green cardboard shamrock hat, anyone?

The other celebration or party, with the music, was more of a puzzle. While I wished they would turn down the volume (too much bass is not cool and only makes my head hurt) I was more interested in the reason for it.  If I had not had my daughter with me for the weekend I would have sauntered over to the hall to peek in the windows, see  what was going on.  I could hear the shouts and squeals of children or young people, so my guess was a big party for family and friends. I don't know if any saints were involved.

Earlier in the evening I had put my daughter to bed after watching one of her favorite shows on the food channel. We had snuggled up on the couch with her collection of stuffed animals, she tucked in under a blanket. She declared that I "made a good footrest," some of the highest praise I've received in the months of my unemployment. We enjoyed our slice of time there, just us, no bother, no worry, no noise and clatter.

That which I truly want to celebrate has no need for the loud and the crass and the intoxicated. As I lay on my bed with the music vibrating through the walls, I wondered what Saint Patrick would really think of this day, and I wondered at my own desire to celebrate something meaningful.  Then I had it. The gift I received today was the quiet time with the blood of my blood. Blessings abound in the silence between our words, and I prayed again in gratitude for the quiet.

Serendipity, with Anchovies

What do you get when you combine spare time, a chance encounter with a recipe once forgotten, and a ten-day-old baguette?

A delicious dinner, of course.  I had it tonight, in the form of pasta ammuddicata, via a re-reading of an essay by John Thorne titled "Pasta With Anchovies". Ammuddicata is an Italian dialect (exact one, I am not sure. Calabrian, maybe?) word meaning 'bread crumbs' and that picture above is of the ones I made out of the aforementioned baguette. They are sauteed in a little bit of olive oil until golden brown, then sprinkled with some hot pepper flakes.

They are so much better tasting than they have any right to be.  I was eating them right out of the bowl.

But I get ahead of myself.  The recipe for pasta ammuddicata seized my attention today as I read the essay. It has a total of six ingredients, one of which (salt) I ended up not using: anchovy fillets, olive oil, bread crumbs, red pepper flakes, salt, and spaghetti.  I recalled that I was intrigued by the dish a long time ago, when I first read it.  For some reason, I never seemed to have stale bread worth turning into crumbs.

That is, until today.  The remains of a baguette purchased ten days ago, at the request of my darling daughter.  We purchased it at the French bakery just down the street, and she thinks of them as a real treat.  Which, frankly, they are because the bakers there know their craft.  The drawback is, the baguettes are just over two feet long, and as much as me and my offspring like bread, we can't eat the whole thing at a sitting.  Nor would I try.

So I had almost half left, and some little voice told me to leave it in the wrapper, sitting on the counter. "I might need it" I heard the voice say.  Sure enough, I did. Inspiration in the form of pasta ammuddicata!  This version calls for bread crumbs to be sprinkled over the pasta at the eater's discretion. The baguette was, by this time, as hard as a stick of locust wood.  I put it in a heavy plastic bag and beat the hell out of it with a hammer, sifting the crumbs through a colander.

All I needed was some anchovy fillets and spaghetti, which I garnered on a quick shopping trip.  Back in the kitchen, I fired up the stove and set to. Lately I have been stressed out and scattered by life, and it felt good to focus, to get into the zen of it. With six ingredients and very little fuss, I had a feast in very little time.

The pasta went into one white ceramic bowl, a salad into another, and the ammuddicata into another.  I sat at the table on my porch, enjoying the early evening of a perfectly lovely day.  The simplicity of it enhanced the taste, and I chewed contentedly.

Early flowers perfumed the air. My heart felt at peace, my stomach felt full. Dinner should always be so good.

The Heart Knows Holi

Breeze brushes crocus,
Celebrants raise powdered hands
Color blooms, heart fills

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 March 8th, 2012, 8:34 PM. Alone at the table. Night, window and breeze.

Sunday Meditation #17: Seeds for the Soul

A burst of joy landed at the Gumbo homestead earlier in the week.  Spring is not far away, and that means it is time for seed catalogs. Huzzah!

A seed catalog may not match Victoria's Secret for le sexy stuff, but nonetheless I was thrilled to find the latest Burpee's homage to All Things Growable sitting in my mailbox.  It came at just the right time. The cover was graced with a brilliant full-color photo of a zinnia, resplendent in eye-popping yellow spattered with red. Neither of those two colors is my favorite but the combination filled me with a bit o' the happies.

I was feeling a bit melancholy.  The gorgeous flower was a nice hit of pretty and a reminder that spring is coming.  I didn't have the energy or time to plant a garden last year, and I don't know if I will this year.  I do know that I like flowers, and the idea of the seed.

Humble little packets of mystery that produce things of beauty, things of savor. A feast for the eyes, nose and mouth.  Sometimes all three if you plant the right stuff.  I would most like to have is a kitchen garden, full of good growing things that I can see, smell, touch and taste.  This is a quiet dream of mine.

I opened the mailbox, with a heart weighed down by care, and a piece of the sun fell into my hands. Spring is on the way, dear readers.  Choose your seeds, plant with care and let the green things revive us.

Cherry Blossom Dream

Memory chamber
Shadows of cherry blossoms
Petals in her hair

Prayer to the Wind

Roots clutching the earth,
lily shakes its head
to banish dark horizons

Rain Song

The sound of silver drops caressing the leaves nearly undid me.  A mostly quiet night, resting at the little table on the porch.  I was enjoying the breeze and the scent of pansies when I noticed  the horizon turning nightshade, a "wine-dark sea" overhead.

And me without my bireme.

No matter, I was captaining a patio chair, with cookies as boon companions and rations for the trip I wanted to take.  My body stayed put, but the heart and mind were off the leash.  I closed my eyes.  I drew in a deep breath and the scent of good green things flowed into my lungs, along with the fresh scent of the rain beginning to fall to starboard of my porch rail.  The patter of water rose to my ears, the tears of Tlaloc uncoiling the spring in the pit of my stomach.


Time stopped.  In that slice of infinity, I recalled home and love, and hands the touch of which I miss.  But the rain was falling, and the good green things will grow.


They will grow.

Wild Roses and the Savage Beast

Thursday evening I arrived back at Casa Del Gumbo wrung out like a old dishrag.  I was beat.  I was hungry.  I was ornery.  In short, I was fit company for neither man nor beast.  During my commute I was at a mild simmer, replaying some vexations from the day in the theater of my cranium.  Stress and fatigue had ganged up on me.  

When I stepped through the door I already had a few ideas for what I would post.  All of them were heavy on the angst and Sturm und Drang of the typical metropolitan life as manifested in a nebbishy 40-something with too much time to think and not enough time to do.  I was hoisting a big ol' steaming mug of cynicism topped off with the sprinkles of unfocused dissatisfaction.  I was loaded for bear.

Good thing I looked outside my kitchen window.  The side yard slopes down to a wooden gate to the backyard, and tucked into the corner of the fences is a wild rose bush.  I pruned it earlier this year before it could put on too much new growth, and that must have inspired the bush to make the most of this spring.

It is blossoming, in a manner most enjoyable.  I could see the bush frosted with pink roses.  I immediately went back outside and down to the rosebush.  The fragrance was faint but enticing.  I leaned into a particularly showy flower and drew deep of breath.  Oh, the aroma...the stress, the anxiety, the jaded fog in my head disappeared.  It was...well, see for yourself, courtesy of my phone camera:

Happy Sunday, y'all.

I Like To Sing-a, About The Spring-a...

For the first time in too long I managed a solo photo outing today, in the morning.  The weather here was uncommonly beautiful.  The sun shining and breeze blowing guaranteed I would be out of the house for a while.  So I flipped a mental coin: cut grass vs. walk through the park by the river.

The river won.

The coin must have known what I needed.  I arrived at the park relatively early, so there were fewer people than usual for such a good weather day.  Aside from a few gaggles of bikers and some rather attractive female runners (another Ponytail Files report, perhaps) I had the trail mostly to myself.  It was wonderful.

I found myself taking fewer pictures than I normally do.  The light, the sounds of birds and water were so entrancing there was little pressure to get that perfect shot.  I let it go and existed in the moment. To my mind, that is a fine definition of a great day, no matter how one views it.  Spring, tonic for the soul.

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Something else that is tonic for the soul: moms. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Making the world go 'round since forever...

Lilacs and Lightning Bolts

Maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe it was someone or some thing trying to get through to me, but today I felt...good.  Like I had energy and a purpose.  I woke up this morning with an eagerness to get started on the day.  Instead of dozing off again and again, it was up and out with vigor.

That it was Easter Sunday was not lost on me.  Rebirth, renewal, rejuvenation, rising and all that.

I am not what you would call a religious man.  Perhaps it may be more accurate to say that I am a man with spiritual leanings, who wonders if he is religious.  Even if I am still grappling with God in all the incarnations put forth by mankind, it is inescapable that I was brought up in a Christian tradition; thus, the symbols and rituals of it are always there in the background.  It is a frame of reference, if I may borrow a bit from physics.

Empty tombs and rising sons weren't really on my mind, though, as I wasn't headed for church.  I was headed for my backyard.  Jesus may have risen this weekend, but then again, so did the grass.  Between the weather, travel and my work schedule lately I have had precious little time to tend to the oasis that is my home.

It is true for me that unfinished business causes me noticeable anxiety.  A low-grade background hum, when I know I have things to do and I can't (or just don't) get to them expediently.  So it was with the yard work.  Brush to chop, leaves to rake, weeds to pull, branches to trim and grass galore waiting to be cut.  I just wanted it done.

So it came to pass that on a glorious Easter morning I was outside pulling and cutting, chopping and bagging, all the while sweating like a waterfall, huffing and puffing like a beached fish.  But, honestly?  It felt good.  It felt real good, even when I was about to faint towards the end of the grass cutting. (Nothing a little exercise won't cure, I'm sure.)

It felt good because I was focused and relaxed.  I had simple problems with measurable results.  The serious case of The Funk that I had been unable to shake for weeks was finally, truly gone.  I read somewhere once, that it is nearly impossible to be depressed when engaged in meaningful work.  I say that is true, if the bubble of bliss I experienced today was any indication.  Sunshine, fresh air and a purpose: it doesn't get any better.

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EPILOGUE:

I experienced some moments of grace today, courtesy of the natural world.  In my backyard there is a pair of lilac bushes, separated by another bush in between, the species of which I am unsure.  These lilac bushes blossom early, and when they do they start emitting the most wonderful aroma, the kind of aroma that makes me go outside just to breathe in when I have a spare moment.  Today while cutting the grass I walked right into a lilac branch, sporting a blossom which caressed its way across my cheek.  My lungs filled up with lilac fragrance, and I couldn't help but smile.

Later in the afternoon, some fast moving thunderstorms rolled in to the area.  The sky took on that amazing shade of pewter while bright silver bolts of lightning bracketed the area around where I lived.  I had the windows open, and I had to shut a few when fat drops of rain started splashing through the screens.  The wind was high, but not destructive, and the aroma of the rain was heavenly.  I was tending to a pot of beans on the stove, watching the branches sway and lightning crease the sky, and thinking this was a fine day indeed.  A fine day to come back to life, no matter what we think of ourselves.