Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life
May 8, 2017

Ode to Cruciferous Delight

First things first for amateur poets such as I:
Ode – a lyric, often overly embellished poem
Meant to be sung or chanted with rapture

Please note no resemblance
Between ‘ode’ and ‘odiferous’ or ‘cruciferous’
Which meaneth no clothespins or otherwise pinch-ed nostrils

I commence herewith—

Loveliest of bitters, I adore you
With every aching cell of my body
And from the depths of my deep kidney hunger

My body aches for your bitter potion
That bringeth solace and life to my most inward of inward parts
Blazing a path of glorious heat

Straight and steady as an arrow
You sweetly sour my tongue, my throat, my very life
With your healing poison

You causeth my lips to pucker
And my tongue it quivereth with heat
My kidneys anticipate the glories of your delectable cleansing

Forgive me, dear radishes, brussels sprouts,
Kale, cauliflower, broccoli, turnips, and your near cousins
Sweetly called lemon and lime

How did I live my life so long
Without your tender ministrations burning
In the most secret of secret depths of my being?

Should you e’er forsake me
I will languish tormented as I await
The joyous moment of our bitter-sweet reunion!

Thus endeth my Ode to Cruciferous Delight.

Written in honor of my CKD (Chronic Kidney Delight) diet, mostly raw and bitter
Special thanks to my trusty Vitamix that maketh all things possible

***

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 May 2017
Photo found at foodandnutrition.org
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Bitter

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May 6, 2017

Just to let you know…

Dear Friends,

Our daughter and her husband arrived Wednesday night for an eagerly anticipated visit with us. I’m in Mom Heaven! Though the weather is cool, damp and rainy, my heart is warm, happy and sometimes achy-teary. This is the first time a visit has felt so heavy with change and uncertainties.

Yesterday was gorgeous. We went to the super market and brought home lots of good veggies, fruit, and other things healthy and not-so-healthy. I’m sticking to my disgustingly healthy CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease) diet, and enjoying every opportunity for conversation and afternoon walks.

The rest of the week promises versions of today: messy/rainy on the outside, laid back and warm on the inside. I hope your weekends also include time for conversation that matters with people you love.

I’ll post as I’m able.

Love,
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 May 2017
Photo found at pixabay.com

9 Comments
May 5, 2017

Happy Cinco de Mayo?

~~May 5, 1862, the siege of Puebla, from a 1901 series of children’s booklets

Cold rain falls steadily
Undermines foundations of trust
Changes perceptions overnight
With over-bold strokes of an executive pen

Stern pretentious words
Proclaim Our America First–
Not Yours!

Bold singing and dancing
Brilliantly costumed adults and children
Delectable Mexican food
Proclaim ‘Happy Cinco de Mayo!’
Against all odds now, as then.

To live the truth of freedom
Is more powerful than a thousand strokes
Of a cold executive pen

Thank you for inspiring us
To live freely, boldly and with flair
In the midst of dull predictable chaos

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser 5 May 2017
Image found at Wickipedia.org
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Lifestyle

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May 3, 2017

Beholden to no one

Beholden to no one
Proud head held high
He sweeps past
With grace in his wings
Pauses in midair
Before dropping down
For a singular feast
On juicy insects bored
From a rotting tree trunk

My feet rooted to the ground
I watch his great beak extract
Life from dust of the earth
Still calm and confident
he lifts his regal head
Surveys the cemetery
Spreads his sweeping wings
And sails majestically over
White gravestones
Silent in awe of his beauty

Wings flapping slowly
He salutes those who are gone
Then rises into dusky air
Lost in a stand of spruce and beech
Giants welcoming his arrival
With graceful open arms

Seen on a walk with D several evenings ago, just after sunset. The male pileated woodpecker was brilliant in red, black and white, calm and confident. I hadn’t seen one in the park for more than four years. Just one call with its haunting rise and slight fall alerted us. He seemed quite comfortable being the star of his show. As though the king or queen were passing by. Unafraid, self-possessed and gracefully regal.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 May 2017
Photo found at photoshelter.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: None

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May 1, 2017

I don’t know where to begin…

So I’m just going to blunder along for a bit. Which is, I’m told, the best way to begin. I think Eeyore would agree with me.

I’m a total novice when it comes to Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). It wasn’t on my horizon and it isn’t in my family of origin.

But that doesn’t matter now. I have it. Stage 3A. In fact, I probably passed ‘Go’ well over a year ago without even knowing it.

So here I am. Floundering around, lurching through each day with emotional highs and lows, energy highs and lows, eating highs and lows, and little sense of overall wellbeing.

High means I’m upbeat, alert, happy to be alive, and at peace with my body. Giving happy hugs to D.

Low means I’m virtually asleep, can’t move a muscle including my brain, and don’t want to look at another healthy smoothie or make another easy-to-chew soup or stew. Weeping silently or openly. Collecting hugs from D as needed.

Do I feel sorry for myself? No, I don’t. Nor do I ask God, “Why me?” There are millions of us out there with this disease. What I regret is the relative invisibility of the disease—often until it’s too late.

Which raises the question of my status. You might think Stage 3A out of 5 stages is fairly decent. Answer: It is and it isn’t. It’s better than Stage 3B. That’s when you start talking about what’s coming in Stage 4 (preparation for the end game). Followed quickly by Stage 5 (dialysis, kidney transplant and, sooner or later, death).

At Stage 3A I have the possibility of leading a different yet fairly ‘normal’ life. That means constant attention to self-care, lab tests, and endless appointments with various doctors. Some people are able to reverse the progress of CKD, but it’s rare at Stage 3. Difficult but possible at Stage 2; often possible at Stage 1.

So what’s the solution? For me, I’m in a crash course I didn’t want. That means reading books, finding online resources, talking with family members, facing the reality that this is a terminal illness for which there is no magic pill. And of course, writing about it, especially about how I’m feeling.

It also means reordering each day as it progresses. Do I need to take a little nap? Meditate? Write my heart out? Do nothing but sit on the porch listening to the birds? Listen to music? Take a little walk? Have a good cry? A good rant?

This is an invisible disease. If you could see me, you probably wouldn’t know anything’s amiss. Most people without CKD haven’t heard much about it, think they won’t get it, or don’t know how to determine whether they’re at risk. Yet millions of us have it. Go figure.

I’ll post more from time to time. Not necessarily because you need to know, but because I want you to know and it helps immensely to write it out and make it public.

Thanks for visiting and reading!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 1 May 2017
Image found at pinterest.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Apprentice

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April 30, 2017

Fear has no wings

I was born into a Christian sub-culture driven by fear. Fear of the world, and fear of God whose all-seeing eye follows us day and night.

This was both comforting and terrifying. The world ‘out there’ was harsh and unforgiving. A dangerous place for little girls and big girls. I needed a Guardian.

Yet God’s all-seeing eye was taking notes. Was I being naughty or nice? Was I pleasing God or making God sad, angry or disgusted?

It was super-important to be productive as well as untouched and untainted by ‘the world.’ Evil lurked around every corner. Fear was the best preventive medicine I could take.

Fear helped me keep rules. Fear helped me develop keen eyes for what would please people in authority over me. Fear surreptitiously kept my hand to the grindstone. I wanted to be ready for the day when God would judge me for what I had done and not done.

I grew up without wings. Instead, I developed a remarkable talent for trying harder and jumping higher. Failure or even the whiff of failure was devastating.

Now, many failures later, I’ve begun developing tiny wings. Baby wings. The kind I trimmed back most of my life, trying to stay in the nest and out of trouble.

Being born plopped me into an aching world fraught with pain and anguish, troubles upon troubles. It’s impossible to stay out of trouble if I’m alive and breathing. Whether it’s my fault or not isn’t the issue.

Today I accept trouble in my life. Not because it’s good, but because it helps me develop baby wings. It helps me look up and around, gaining a glimpse of where I might fly next. I don’t want to waste more time trying to jump higher.

Here’s a favorite quote from Simone Weil’s Waiting for God. The highlighting is mine.

There are those people who try to elevate their souls
like someone who continually jumps from a standing position
in the hope that forcing oneself to jump all day—and higher every day—
they would no longer fall back down, but rise to heaven.
Thus occupied, they no longer look to heaven.

We cannot even take one step toward heaven.
The vertical direction is forbidden to us.
But if we look to heaven long-term,
God descends and lifts us up.
God lifts us up easily.

As Aeschylus says,
‘That which is divine is without effort.’
There is an ease in salvation more difficult for us than all efforts.

In one of Grimm’s accounts, there is a competition of strength
between a giant and a little tailor.
The giant throws a stone so high that it takes a very long time
before falling back down.
The little tailor throws a bird that never comes back down.
That which does not have wings always comes back down in the end.


© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 April 2017
Photo of baby golden-eye ducks found at urbanpeek.com

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April 28, 2017

Knackered Friday?

Are you knackered? This great word comes from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Australia and beyond. Here are several visual definitions. For the benefit of all who are too knackered to read on.

First, a photo of Smudge (above), taken several days after he was rescued dripping wet, voracious and exhausted, by our granddaughters and their mother. Knackered. As in all tuckered out.

Here are four other helpful overviews, thanks to Google,
beginning with my personal favorite:

And three more, in case you need further insight:

Me either!

Here’s to an unknackered weekend!
With sincere apologies to my many friends
who know far more and better
than I do about knackered.

Dare I ask: Are you knackered? Feel free to share your experiences!
Or not.

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 April 2017
Photo/Image credits:
Megan Naugle Fraser, Smudge, taken 11 August 2013
Knackered Mom: doodlemum.files.wordpress.com
Knackered Dog: memesuper.com
Knackered Cat: tumblr.com
Knackered Relaxing Oat Bath Milk: fieldandstyle.com

Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Knackered

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April 27, 2017

My flying carpet

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

Poem by Emily Dickinson
Poetry for Young People, Sterling 2008

Nearly every flat space and bookshelf in my home office is blanketed with books. It seems the only thing I’m missing is an Emily Dickinson throw blanket to wrap around me on my adventures!

I found the text above in my collection of Emily Dickinson Poetry for Young People. The poem comforts me these days as I adjust to new health realities. They include not being as mobile as I would like.

Since I don’t own the blanket in the photo, I’ll dream about it and baptize one of my other throws with its magic. A bit like a flying carpet to carry my imagination far away. At bargain prices and on my schedule.

Right now I’d like to find a book filled with “prancing poetry.”

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 April 2017
Image of Emily Dickinson Poem Throw Blanket found at zazzie.com/poem+blankets
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt:Blanket

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April 26, 2017

thick roots revisited

P1040831

thick roots tangled knots
barely hanging onto bank
drink deep waters

This haiku was my third post to this blog, published on 3 January 2014. It still haunts me, though not in the same way.

I first saw these roots when D and I were walking with our daughter and her husband through Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The tangled roots were beautiful and foreboding.

A bit like blogging, which I’ve experienced as a formidable venture into unknown territory. Like being born and surviving. Sometimes against all odds.

Writing lets my exposed roots show, often whether I realize they’re showing or not. Writing also stakes my claim to a tiny, precarious plot of land that sits open, vulnerable and visible to passersby.

I’ve traveled a long way since my early posts, yet my roots are still my roots. Bare, and barely hanging onto precious ground that’s stronger, deeper, and more nourishing than I could have imagined.

Deep waters aren’t visible, and they don’t untangle all the knots in my life. Sometimes I wonder whether they’re drying up.

Yet even in dire circumstances, I discover more than enough to get me through each day. Sometimes with tears of sorrow and disbelief. More often with joy and sheer gratitude for the privilege of being human. Able to thrive in the forest next to redwood giants, with miniscule ferns growing around and from my feet.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 April 2017
Photo credit: DAFraser, October 2012, Hoyt Arboretum, Portland, Oregon
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Roots

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April 25, 2017

The long way home

My feet take the long way home through damp woods
Trees dripping with moss reach down, brush my cheek
Crystal flowing streams keep me company
Swarming insects dance in patches of light
Songbirds announce territorial bounds
Skittering squirrels rustle through fallen leaves
Iridescent beetles crisscross my path
Cicada song rises and falls in concert
Hungry gnats dive-bomb my face and nostrils
Far ahead I hear familiar voices

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 April 2017
Photo found at newfloridians.com

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