Wise Women gathering at the well by the light of Mother Moon.
Another piece for my altar cloth.
Tag: 365altars (Page 5 of 7)
every drop
is an individual.
and oh my goodness gracious,
just look
at the power
they generate
when they
comes together
without forfeiting,
without giving up,
without yielding,
their own unique
well, dropedness.
tonight, as every night,
and every day,
i celebrate
individuality.
to all who
gather
around common interests
but refuse
to flock.
to all who
travel the
same path,
but refuse
to be herded.
to all
who think
for themselves,
ask questions
(sometimes pointedly),
who aren’t afraid
to sense
and feel . . .
i bow to you
and whisper
“please don’t
ever stop.”
Enter (I hope) the long sentence: the collection of clauses that is so many-chambered and lavish and abundant in tones and suggestions, that has so much room for near-contradiction and ambiguity and those places in memory or imagination that can’t be simplified, or put into easy words, that it allows the reader to keep many things in her head and heart at the same time, and to descend, as by a spiral staircase, deeper into herself and those things that won’t be squeezed into an either/or. With each clause, we’re taken further and further from trite conclusions — or that at least is the hope — and away from reductionism, as if the writer were a dentist, saying “Open wider” so that he can probe the tender, neglected spaces in the reader (though in this case it’s not the mouth that he’s attending to but the mind). ~ Pico Iyer
the amazing thing about committing to (at least) a year’s worth of altars – committing to stay – is that i see altars everywhere, even in long sentences.
POP QUIZ:
Was there a spot in your day when you paused and paid attention to a tender, often-neglected place in your life physical or otherwise)? What led you there? Who or what held the space for you?
That’s what altars do for me: They slow me down, open the way to a deeper, more meaningful engagement with life.
How ’bout you?
People ask me: why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do? The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. —M. F. K. Fisher
Tonight I am hungry for quiet, for stitching, for reading. I seem to be empty of words, but I will tell you that there are some beautiful altars happening out there in the ethers.
On the 365 Altars Facebook page, you should just see the altars Sunny Howe and Karen Sharp are creating every single day. Mesmerizing. Touching. Intriguing. Beautiful.
Then there’s this altar and this altar and this altar and this altar.
and last but not least, there’s this altar and this altar.
Just a small sampling of beauty being created all over the place, one altar at a time.
from my journal, dated 12/25/11 (but still true):
maybe it’s because i have a tendency to live, think, walk and breathe in metaphors.
maybe it’s because i’m still too invested in pleasing others.
maybe it’s because i don’t have enough degrees.
maybe it’s because i don’t travel enough, don’t cook enough, don’t . . . don’t . . . don’t. . .
maybe it’s because i have far more questions than answers.
maybe it’s because i’m unwilling or distrustful or too egocentric to just take what you tell me as the gospel truth.
i don’t know why,
i only know that
i have a restless soul
that wants to be
listened to deeply
loved wholeheartedly
seen lightly
touched tenderly.
my spirit
begs space to ask
the questions
and patience
to find the answers
understanding
that the answers
might be
more questions
or a painting
or dance
or cloth
or sky
or grass
or weeds
or fire
or rain.
my soul
has an itch
that no amount
of over the counter
analgesic
or prescription
anti-itch
ointment
can soothe.
and the worst part?
the itch moves
and shifts
and enjoys
playing
hide and seek.
I see
the field
of dewdrop diamonds
sparkling in the sun,
scattered
amid and around
the plentiful
cow patties
and I think
“self portrait.”
it is the sixth day of sun and blue skies we’ve seen since thanksgiving, so we do the only thing that makes sense: we leave. we trek to a nearby town in search of an air purifier – that was our official excuse – and after spending, oh i don’t know, maybe two minutes on that search, we walk up and down main street, ducking in the human society thrift shop – where i found two national geographic magazines i can’t live another day without – then on down to one of the many antique shops on the square.
we see christening dresses, white gloves, a colonial war metal warming plate. we see a small perfume bottle in a sterling silver case that snaps closed with a definitive click. we see an entire cabinet full of keys . . . alas, but no roller skate key. if the woman who talks to herself is to be believed, we see a bible box and an ice cream plate. she begins to talk to me, generously sharing with me news of the best deal around: a mining spot in cherokee, n.c. where you buy a bucket for $13 and set to mining. she went there not long ago, and having decided to hold onto the smaller stones in their natural state, she is heading back over tomorrow to pick up her 3 carat emerald that’s being cut. the man doing the cutting reckons that one stone alone is worth $3,000.00 to $4,000.00, and she wonders how on earth they can make money with buckets costing only $13 each, but soon enough she answers her own question: they own the mining rights AND they get paid to cut and set the stones. she doesn’t think she’s tall enough to pull off wearing a four carat emerald, so she’s fine with the smaller three carat stone.
when she picks up her cut stone, she’ll pay for two or three more of those $13 buckets, hoping to raise enough money to purchase the ten acres on the market for $10,000. it’s uncleared land, but she figures she will sell the stones to pay for the clearing of five acres which she’ll then sell and use the proceeds from that sale to clear the other five acres and have clarence come put her a trailer there where she’ll live happily ever after.
///
spying the glass-front filled with jars and bags of marbles, the young mesmerized boy says pointedly, “dad, do you realize i don’t have any marbles?”
“oh you have some marbles,” his dad says, distracted with the boxes filled with hinges and door knobs and such he’s rifling through “you’ve just lost them.”
///
we see a naked baby doll that’s much the worse for wear, her skin all cracked and peeling, one eye permanently closed in a wink, her smile faded but still radiant. i want to bring her home and love her.
a smaller doll lies in the box with her, a doll so small you can hold her in the palm of one hand. her tag says “porcelain doll missing,” and sure enough both feet, one hand, and one arm up to the elbow have been amputated. i don’t know how to fix her, so i hug her, lay her back down, and wish her well.
///
as i stitch the evening away and as the scraps of fabric find their way together into a new cloth, these lines by nikki giovanni comes to dance in the eye of my needle:
When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm
And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers.
///
i met him 39 years ago tonight. he was a bartender, and i was one of two girlfriends enjoying a night on the town. we were only looking for a free drink, but i got so much more – the bartender’s eye that night, and his heart soon after. he had my heart from the get-go.
i still feel a tingle when i see him after even the briefest absence. his lips are still the softest lips i’ve ever kissed. he is gentle, and though he doesn’t always understand me, he at least tries. his logical, linearly-inclined way of thinking his way through the world nicely balances my more metaphorically-inclined, search-for-the-story way that bends towards unpredictable. we hold hands wherever we are. he’s never put his work before family, and most importantly: we laugh. a lot.
we’re not the same people now, individually or together. how could we be, really? and our love is different, too. not better, not worse, just different.
and still changing all the time.
///
On the way to her day-after-cataract-surgery eye doctor visit, Mother and I stopped by one of our favorite restaurants where the women who work there know what the regulars want before the regulars do. “You take care of yourself, Miss Ada,” Mindy Sue told my mother as we checked out. “Don’t be bending over or anything. There wasn’t anybody around to stay with my mama when she had her cataract surgery, so to remind herself about not bending over, she cut off a broom handle and put it down her pants leg.”
///
The eye doctor is an old friend of mine. Our children played together. We vacationed together. We walked into each other’s house without knocking. Then the kid started to different schools, and parenting commitments caused us to drift apart.
I had dread in my bones this morning. I noticed it, sure enough, but decided I was probably just tiredness and a reluctance to get out again. “Y’all come on back here,” his assistant said as she ushered us from the waiting room, motioning us to sit in a couple of waiting chairs in the hall outside the exam rooms. Two. There were only two chairs. Two chairs and two women – Mother and me. That’s it. Two.
“Hey Mike,” I said cheerily when he appeared, and I was relieved to be sincerely glad to see him. “See,” I hissed to the dread, “it’s not so bad.”
Apparently the happy reunion was a party for one. He said nothing. Didn’t even look at me. Didn’t even look in my direction. Didn’t even look at my chair leg. Just told Mother how glad he was to see her, took her arm, helped her into the exam room, never once acknowledging in any way imaginable that I even existed.
I took a seat in the small exam room, cramped with three people inside. He proceeded to talk to Mother, continuing to ignore me as much as he ignored the socks on his feet. As much as he ignored the hairs on his face. As much as he ignored the box of tissues sitting on the counter.
It’s been a while since I felt so overlooked, so thoroughly invisible, so totally and absolutely dismissed.
“Hello Mike, I’m Jeanne,” I eventually said, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. It has been an age since we saw each other. “I know who you are,” he said without even turning his head in my direction.
“Oh well, then,” I said, “so you really were being rude.”
Now this is tricky because my mother is so nice – NICE, I tell you – and she gets very upset when there’s friction and disharmony.
“No,” he said. “I was just focusing on your mother. I didn’t want her to stumble or fall. She had eye surgery yesterday, and one eye is bandaged and when you’re used to having two eyes, you might fall.” Like I didn’t realize she had cataract surgery yesterday, like I couldn’t be trusted to help steady her.
To keep from upsetting Mother, I declined to say anything further and swatted away the insult I felt. He continued his examination of Mother’s recently de-cataracted right eye. Wanting to smooth things over, Mother said, “Well, I thought you probably didn’t recognize Jeanne. Thought maybe you haven’t seen her with red hair.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I didn’t recognize her. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.”
I remained silent, not wanting to embarrass Mother, not wanting to upset Mother, not wanting to be a bad girl. He talked with Mother about his wife and his grandchildren. When he pointed to the grandchildren’s photos, I didn’t even turn my head for a peek, a small rebellion. “Tell your wife hello for me,” I said as we made ready to leave. “Perhaps she will be glad to hear from me.”
“I guess I hurt your feelings,” he said flatly while making notes in Mother’s chart. “Didn’t mean to,” he added, still making notes.
“You did hurt my feelings,” I told him, desperately wanting to add “but more than that, you made me angry and you lied and you trivialized me and you were rude and you gave me as much attention as you did the chair I was sitting on and for all you know, I was a customer. And which is it anyway: you wanted to help Mother (because I am apparently incapable of helping her) or you didn’t recognize me?” . . . but I didn’t, of course, because Mother was looking anxious.
///
“I didn’t know what to do,” she told me in the car at the bank’s drive-thru window on our way home.
“I know,” I said, sounding calmer than I felt. Then, speaking in a voice that amazed me with his calm, quiet, matter-of-fact tone I said, “This man was rude. He was wrong. He was obnoxious. Mother, I love you, but I can’t join forces with him and erase myself. Far too many times in my life, I’ve been dismissed, cast aside . . . and I realized today, that I’ve dismissed myself as much as anybody else has dismissed me. Yes, I still want you to be proud of me, to love me, but I will no longer stand for being treated like an object. Not ever again. There’s plenty I long to tell him, but the fact that I called him on it – no matter how small my words – is enough. Instead of overlooking his dismissal, instead of excusing it or being quiet or staying calm or refusing to wrestle with pigs or taking the high road or imaging how busy he was or how much he had on his mind, or minding my words, or not saying something for fear of regretting it later, I spoke up. The tiniest bit, but I spoke up and in my own respectful-of-my-Mother way stood up for myself, and I can feel a deep unearthing, a subtle shift. Is it enough to salve over all the other times I’ve been treated by myself and others like lint on the back of a jacket? No, but it’s a start.”
///
Annie worked the bank window today, and as I turned to see what was taking her so long to cash one little check, she pulled the microphone down to her lips and asked, “How would you like this – are 10s and 20s okay?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” I said. “Sorry for the delay. I’m a bit upset.”
“I could tell,” she said. “That’s why I gave you some time.”
///
Later there was Skype call with Sally and Karen. There were text message conversations with Julie and Angela. There were brief exchanges on Twitter and Facebook. There was a hot stone massage and reflexology with Marcia, and after supper, an impromptu visit with three girlfriends from high school.
Women holding space for other women, witnessing the brilliance of other women. Women reclaiming their own glorious genius. This is what we do, this is what we need, this is what 365 Altars is all about . . . this and more. Much more.
it has been a busy week.
full.
full, i tell you.
mother had cataract surgery today.
she is doing swell,
and i will be, too,
as soon as
i play a bit.
art does that for me.
creativity to the rescue.
good old-fashioned
messy, no checklist
just-cut-loose-cause-nobody’s-grading-this
creativity
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integrity
This work by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.TheBarefootHeart.com.
here ‘n there