Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life
January 7, 2019

On giving ourselves away

What is a good death, Teacher?
And where might I look to find one?

Bad deaths abound
Alongside seemingly valiant deaths
And deaths of great sacrifice

But are they good deaths?

My new calendar hangs above me
Three young renaissance women
Observe life within and without
Through eyes that betray nothing
Wisps of pure virgin hair peek
From demur and ornate headpieces

Will they die good deaths, Teacher?
If so, why? When? And how?
And will they have led good lives?

Or will they muddle through
Whatever life requires of them?
Clean slates upon which dreams
Begin and end without a whimper
Good girls and good women
Who cared not for themselves
But for the needs of others
Now gone without a trace

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 January 2019
Hans Holbein sketch found at pinterest.com

9 Comments
January 5, 2019

color me fragile

color me fragile
transparent windows open
to waves of music
floating through winter’s cold nights
from stars and planets waiting
to welcome me home

I think often of death these days. Not as something to fear, but as a reminder that today’s music won’t wait for tomorrow. It’s here. Now. Waiting to be experienced, honored, held close. A reminder of the good that has come my way and the good people who still sing to me when I feel lonely, scared or overwhelmed. Many now wait to welcome me home.

Morose? No. It’s food for my soul. A warm fuzzy blanket to wrap around me when I begin to falter. It’s the reason I greet each day with expectancy and hope mixed with sadness. Life sometimes feels heavy to bear. Then those reminders come floating in. A gift, if not proof, that I’ve had and have a life beyond the life I see and remember.

Praying your day is filled with graceful music from unexpected sources.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 January 2019
Image found at wallpaperup.com

12 Comments
January 2, 2019

Sand of life’s fine wine

One day follows another
Slips between my fingers —
Sand of life’s fine wine
Served in tiny portions

I want it all right now
To have and to hold —
Shaping every room into
The castle of my choosing

Weariness descends
Seagulls circle beckoning
My eyes close dreaming —
Waves lapping at my toes

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 January 2019
Photo found at pbs.org

4 Comments
December 31, 2018

A Fond Farewell to 2018

Dear Friends,

The last two months I’ve been barely alive on my blog. That’s partly because D and I have gallivanted with family members almost nonstop.

In November we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with our son, his wife and their three children. It was our last family meal in their big old house plus barn and meadow. We were surrounded by boxes waiting to be moved to their new house (minus barn and meadow). Not in the middle of nowhere, but in the middle of everything—with no big yard or outdoor animals to keep up.

Then we were off to Portland, Oregon for ten wonderful days with our daughter and her husband. It was our first visit to Oregon in over two years. I posted photos here. We did nothing but rest, talk, and eat good food plus some of the other stuff. Fabulous!

Then just before Christmas we spent Sunday in western Pennsylvania with David’s sister, her husband, two adult children, their spouses, a couple of grandchildren, and our son. Lots of good food, lively conversation and catching up with relatives we don’t often see.

Finally, back to our son and daughter-in-law’s new house on Christmas day with their three children, their second set of grandparents, two big dogs and two small cats. There were still boxes to be emptied, and everyone was feeling his/her way along. Nonetheless, they were excited about their new neighborhood and neighbors.

In addition, I talked on the phone with my two surviving sisters, and thought a lot about our sister Diane, and our Mother. I still tear up and grieve their lives and deaths. Both were in their last months during and after Christmas. I’m grateful for the opportunity to visit with them before they died. Mom in 1999; Diane in 2006.

Yet the bottom line isn’t morose. I’m more upbeat and less anxious now than I’ve been for the last few years. Hopeful about many things, but chiefly about my health and well-being, no matter what happens next.

For now, I’m grateful for the opportunity to write from my heart, and belong to the WordPress community. Thank you for all your visits, likes (or not), and comments.

Though things look bleak at the top (speaking of politics), it seems the best place to live is at the bottom. With love and acceptance, without malice, reflecting the light that entered our world at Christmas – one small flame at a time.

Happy New Year to you and yours!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 31 December 2018
Photo found at fpctyler.com

8 Comments
December 28, 2018

Year’s end approaches

This morning I woke
Floating again within
A calmer space
Less fraught with angst
Or anguish of life

Cars splash to and fro
Outside my office window
Hurrying somewhere
Or reluctantly ambivalent
All roads aren’t chosen

Year’s end approaches
Almost without notice
Holding layer upon layer
Of unsavored moments
And gaping disasters

Yet my heart is calm
The flow of life and death
Invites steadiness
In the space between now
And coming joys and sorrows

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 December 2018
Photo found at 123RF.com

10 Comments
December 27, 2018

My third try at the lottery

10:18am–
Congratulations!
You have now joined
the long line of callers
continuing to hold as
discordant jingle jangles
scream at me through
my miraculous speaker
phone enabling this poem
to birth itself as the
nonsense of this world
spins out of control
one minute after another

My mind wanders to
fairer days when real
people with real not fake
friendly voices answered
whether I wanted to do
business with them or not

At least they were there
on the job and paid enough
perhaps (I do not know)
to earn a living wage
instead of this inane broken
record that has cheerfully
announced the importance
of my call and assured me
that my call is important
to say nothing of reiterated
apologies that do nothing to
reassure me that anyone will
be on this line anytime during
the next hour or so and yet
hanging up means giving up
which I don’t have time to do

So now I’m feeling sorry for
everyone including myself
who is enduring this nonsense
on both ends of the line
wondering how we come to
find ourselves in this fine mess
given all our duly worshiped
electronic devices that are
supposed to be making sure
all is well and in order with
no one left behind or left out
as I now believe I am with
millions on other lines doing
exactly what I’m doing and No,
I do not have the competency
to do two things at once though
to be honest I never thought
I would get this far on a so-called
poem about a so-far nothing call….

10:30am–
Hello! This is Brenda! How may I help you?

Brenda was wonderful. I got my business sorted in the space of 3-4 minutes. Which partially atoned for my first two tries earlier that went on and on and on…..

Yes, it’s the end of the year and I’m back in town. Ready to go and grateful for the last several weeks in which I’ve enjoyed an orgy of family visits around meals and on the phone.

Cheers!
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 December 2018
Photo of a 1950s/1960s call center found at syntheticzero.net

4 Comments
December 19, 2018

Listening to the sound of my soul

Listening to the sound of my soul
I reach for the sky and deep into earth
Stretching strings and finding notes
I never thought I would hear or play
No overnight miracles promised
Just the overwhelming satisfaction
Of moving a fraction of an inch
Closer to the woman I now am
And the young girl I longed to be

Years pile on one after another
I pause for a slow deep breath –
Raising my head and sinking my feet
Down into the ground beneath me
I reach up and out one more time for
Improbable dreams already dancing
Within my soul by heart and on pages
Of this body of graceful ligaments
Listening for the sound of my soul

With thanks to Eugene Louis (Luigi) Faccuito for this quote: “To dance, put your hand on your heart and listen to the sound of your soul.” Luigi had a long career as a dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. Most of it against great odds, due to physical challenges and limitations.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 December 2018

5 Comments
December 17, 2018

Winter Garden Photos from Portland

That lovely tub above is the secret sauce for Sherry and Scott’s backyard garden. It’s a worm hatchery. Not the little bucket at the front, but the great big tub. It’s teeming with hungry worms, scraps of food, paper, and anything else worms love to eat. Worm juice collected in the small bucket gets distributed as needed. Right now this is the only worm hatchery needed for the garden. The other two are now elegant planters for japonica and other outdoor plants.

Just beside the worm house are piles of firewood neatly stacked, ready for winter.

Back in the garden, Sherry and Scott are giving me the grand tour while D takes photos. It was bitter cold that day, with a fierce wind from the northwest. The bat boxes are new since we were last there.

So while we’re at it, here’s another garden-friendly house for insects that love to catch garden pests. It’s an old bird house renovated for insects using pieces of bamboo.

At the far end of the garden, under a row of trees and near the side street there’s a virtual habitat for small animals. Not just for winter cover and spring nests, but for food served up 24/7. It’s long, lovely, and barely visible from the street. Those are old apples, discarded bamboo and other ‘throw-away’ stuff in the photo below.

Beginning with the garden gate below, here are three favorites from around the back yard.

The mini-meadow below is in the back yard. It includes a bird house, plus meadow-plants that produce lots of pollen and seeds–to attract birds, bees and butterflies. Even though it’s winter, they’re still loaded with seeds.

And one more–just because I like it! This little oriental-style lantern sits on the ground just below the back porch.

Thanks again for stopping by. In some ways, it feels as though I’ve already had Christmas. Seeing Sherry and Scott is always a big deal. And yes, absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. So right now I’m channeling all that fondness into thoughts about our next trip to Portland! And visits with other friends and family members to celebrate Christmas and the gift we are to each other.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 December 2018
Photos taken by DAFraser, December 2018

6 Comments
December 13, 2018

Farewell to Portland | Photos

Alas! All good things….and all that. Except for the photos, thanks to D. The holly tree above is from our daughter and her husband’s yard. We got home about midnight Saturday, and I’ve been jet-lagging until today. The weather was colder than toot, with pretty stiff wind most days.

No wandering in the arboretum, hikes through the forest, visits to the rose garden or day-trips into the Oregon wilderness. Instead, we relaxed, ate good food, listened to great music, and drank juice concoctions featuring fresh-picked kale and other healthy stuff like fresh ginger and apples. Below is a photo of kale that hasn’t stopped giving.

Just outside the kitchen sink window we could see a couple of bird feeders, including a hummingbird feeder. Here’s a tiny female Anna’s Hummingbird that hangs around every day, fending off all hummingbird intruders.

Our daughter and her husband have a screen-printing business, Olympic Screen Printing. I love this photo of some of her husband’s paint cans. A large, bright, cheery set of colors with which he works his magic. Click here to see examples of t-shirts they’ve printed over the years.

Below is a small pond designed and built by our son-in-law several years ago. It’s now fully functional, with its own ecosystem of water plants and water-loving insects and animals. In the second photo note the thin layer of ice on part of the surface. Another of D’s special impressionist water photos!

You might be wondering about the bamboo? They planted it several years ago when a construction crew came in and began putting up big-box housing with tiny back yards. Imagine going from a beautiful field around one house, to rows and rows of look-alike houses. The bamboo is now beginning to do its job–providing privacy as well as beauty.

Finally, here’s a look at one of their dozens of Japonica shrubs. Also planted a while back, up against the house and along some of the fencing.

I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see so many of their plans and hard work now paying off. And yes, it was very hard to leave and come back home.

Smudge, of course, wasn’t exactly thrilled to see us come barging into the house in the middle of the night. After several days of scolding us for abandoning him, he seems to have calmed down. Actually, our son looked in on him faithfully and sent photos to reassure us that all was well.

Cheers,
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 13 December 2018
Portland photos taken by DAFraser, December 2018; Photos of Smudge taken by SEFraser, December 2018

10 Comments
December 4, 2018

through fading light

She drifts through fading light
Heavy with good old days
And nights of celestial fare
When aging memories signified
Faded minds and shrinking lives
Cemented in the here and now
Reliving ghosts of yesterdays
Remnants of fruit gone sweetly sour
With age and bitter longing

Written on the airplane after reading yet again Emily Dickinson’s poem “These are the days….”

My poem is a comment on aging and the conceit of the young. I’m thinking of the way my own young eyeballs used to roll in their sockets when the “old” folks got going. Relentlessly they recalled and relived their happiest, most longed-for yesterdays. How silly! Don’t they know the past is gone? And then there are all those not-so-longed-for yesterdays.

To my mind these aging relics were out of touch. Couldn’t they see the relentless coming and going of life’s seasons? Yet even then I was already collecting and hoarding my own memories. Preparing for days when I, like all those old folks, revisit the glories and not-so-glorious memories of yesterday that hover just beyond my grasp.

We can’t relive the past, We can, however, go back the way a short Indian summer takes us back to a bit of warmth and beauty before cold winter sets in. We can take that brief, spectacular look into the rear-view mirror of our lives and connect with ourselves yet again. This time with eyes more forgiving and content than we ever dreamed possible.

This week we’re on the West Coast, visiting our daughter and her husband. Being with them reminds me again that life is short and precious. I pray for you and for all of us the courage to stop and look back from time to time.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 December 2018

4 Comments