**********
Back in November, I participated in Sue Jefts’ workshop series,
Poetic Delights: Walking into Poetry, Walking into Life, at
Still Point. From the second session,I came away musing muchly about
loss, about what we choose to retain, and about the small astonishments
of each day that perhaps are only treasured as we gain more life experience,
as we move into our elder years. I pondered what we lose and what remains
(which happens to have been a recent theme for a WomanWords workshop).
And then, of course, there was this whole metaphor of Autumn, my favorite
season of the year, the time of turning leaves, grinning pumpkins, departing
formations of geese, chilly morning fogs and, eventually, an absence
of warmth that we can sometimes fill with hot cocoa, bonfires and tunneling
under piles of blankets with a good book.
The poem was "Autumn" by John Brehm (from The Way Water
Moves, Flume Press). As our small group read and re-read, dissected
and discovered, its short yet evocative lines, the opening words struck
a chord with each of us: "It is to the small satisfactions/ we
must return, for surely/ the great ones fail us." I thought of
my mother and how she is (at 77) losing her memory to dementia (or Alzheimer’s).
How small my mother’s satisfactions of late—something good
to eat, a trip to the Shaker Shed for vegetables, a visit with her 92-year-old
sister Helen (whose memory appears to be intact)—and yet, what
were her great expectations? The irony is that her small expectations
are now her greatest ones. (I believe Therese Broderick, at that same
session, pointed out something of this from the poem.) And yet, if I
drive to her place and take her out for a few hours, she may not remember
the next day that she escaped her apartment—and her boredom—for
a short time just the day before.
Brehm goes on, in the piece, to point out the common everyday things
we unexpectedly appreciate ("…houses and trees, suddenly/
precise, alive and themselves…") "now,/ now that we
have given up on/ matters of brooding consequence… ." And
so I found myself writing about how I too have learned to give up on
"brooding" about "matters of consequence." Not that
I fail to care about issues, about the terrible conditions of war, poverty,
injustice and environmental desecration, or even matters closer to home
that might bring grief, remorse or pain. It’s just that 57 years
have taught me, finally, that there is only so much that I can do. It
is what it is. I do what I can do. And then I must let go—in order
to survive. Hopefully, I have found something that I can do, and I have
done it. Perhaps, it has only been a bit of kindness offered along the
way (I like that the Dalai Lama says, "Kindness is my religion,"
for it opens a pathway to spirituality for so many), or a donation of
some kind, or guiding a woman toward finding her Voice. But it is something,
and it might be one of those "small things" that moves toward
something greater.
I think of this in terms of my mother, and I wonder if her loss of memory—difficult
though it may be in other ways—is a gift to us. It is as though
she is being taken from us gradually, this strong intelligent woman
who quit school in ninth grade to go to work. It won’t be the
sharp-edged, sudden absence of our brother Bill, snatched from us by
a heart attack a few years ago. When Dolly is finally gone from her
body, her family will have witnessed her release, will have grieved
it for some time, until the person who leaves us will not be the same
woman who nurtured us, watched us grow and let us move into the world.
We will grieve, instead, her own loss of those "golden" years
when she might have enjoyed more of life, had she retained the mental
capacity with which to do it. Perhaps the letting-go will then be easier.
My mother’s loss, on the other hand, also frightens me. I know
my mother no longer reads books because (although she does not admit
this) she may not remember what she read the day before. I swallow loads
of supplements every morning, including Vitamin E, in what may be a
futile attempt to ward off the loss of words, my greatest fear. When
the right word doesn’t come immediately, I worry that dementia
is just around the corner. I think I ought to begin to speak more slowly,
let people think I have developed into a more "pensive" person,
given to speaking in a dreamy, drowsy kind of way—when really
I am allowing more time for that missing word to pop up and out of my
mouth! When someone’s name slips from my memory as I introduce
a group of people—someone I’ve known for years—I wonder
if I should go back to the gingko biloba supplements, even though I
know scientific studies seem to indicate it is ineffective in preventing
Alzheimer’s (what do they know—did they lose their best
friend’s name last week?). It is what it is. I do what I can.
I still struggle with letting go on this one.
I remember that, in ancient traditions, Autumn brings Samhain (what
we now call Halloween)—and this is a time of renewal. In fact,
it is the pagan New Year. Legend has it that this is the time of year
when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest, when the ancestors
can be contacted, when sometimes the answers are available to us. I
like that sense of renewal, especially at my age. I like the thought
of contacting a few ancestors—Grandma Ruth Boyd, my brother Bill
Zembo, Uncle Arch…--but then, would I remember the questions?
**********
THE WRITING EXERCISE:
In Susan Jefts’ workshop, we were invited to write from prompts
inspired by the Brehm’s "Autumn," one of which cited
"matters of brooding consequences." That’s one place
you could start. Or you could write about Autumn. Or loss. What have
you lost? What remains? What matters? In the previous week’s workshop,
we read and discussed, "Briefing for Finisterre" by Josephine
Jacobsen—"…Love is a secret. Only you/ Know what is
inside of it. Remember that./ To be sure of what you will not give up/
is the point…"—what matters, what will you not give
up?
The following poem came out of Sue’s workshop for me (the first
poem I’ve written in months!), and after that find Jan Marin Tramontano’s
"take" on loss (of words), a prose poem.
Through the Mandala Window
The bones of trees
undressed for the season
stillness against gray mist
shadows at their feet
each slice of timid light
scratched upon skeleton trunks
color-strokes hidden
behind the veil
of chill October eve.
In the circular glass, a face
reflected ghost, silhouette of
the Mother calling Persephone
return, return – destined
to call, to grieve, to weep
for months to come, forever.
-Marilyn Zembo Day
The Day I Lost Mussolini
Every day words dare me to find them. Sometimes they fall away completely.
Other times, letters float in an alphabet soup begging to be arranged,
familiar as an old friend whose face you can’t quite see. Or a
picture appears without the caption as it was for me when it all started,
the day I lost Mussolini-- the large M floating behind my eyes vowels
flying too fast for me to see.
It was all there -the uniform, drab brown, the wooden salute, but the
letters were nowhere in sight. No matter how far back I reached into
memory to zoom in on the target. I could see this little nameless M
general but the harder I tried the less sure I was that there was a
general of vowels. Maybe it wasn’t him at all but another small
grim looking uniformed man, perhaps Stalin or Trotsky or Uncle Irving.
From then on my losses were steady, two today, six last week. It’s
alarming. Does this forgetting pick up speed? Just how many words do
I know anyway and how do I count them? Word. Word play. Word loss. Wordsmith.
Wordy. Wordless. Is that one or is it six?
I’ve taken to writing down these words for safekeeping, hoarding
those I’ve recaptured, struggling to reclaim the lost locking
them away for the time when the occasional lost morsel becomes the whole
meal.
(Revised from its original form, Finding and Holding on to Words, published
in Peer Glass: An Anthology: Writings from Hudson Valley Peer Groups,
2004)
-Jan Marin Tramontano
Remember to ignore that Inner Critic. Just write. Try not to
cross out along the way. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation
or grammar. Just get it down on paper. You can even make up words—and
sometimes you’ll like them so well you’ll keep them ("muchly"
is not a real word—included in this column-- but I retained it
because I liked the alliteration, and there’s nothing like an
invented word to draw the reader’s attention… as in Lewis
Carroll and Dr. Seuss!). Later, you re-read it to mine the gems, the
pieces you will save, hone into a finished piece… or not. The
healing and the satisfaction are in the doing… the small things
that might transform into something greater.
Be well & writing.
With blessings,
Marilyn
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