Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Category: Haiku/Poetry

November 10, 2018

Dancing in the face of partisan politics

Pray tell me
How do I dance
In the face of partisan politics
Straining to separate me
From other human beings

And how do I dance with freedom
In the face of threats
To undo me
Or you
Or us

Age and health
Weigh heavily on me
As does diminished ability to move
Freely on my own

And this dance floor seems too small
To hold my aching heart
Longing for more
Than I can ever accomplish

Or perhaps
The ‘more’ is already here

Behind and around me
Invisible
Doing what You intend it to do
Making its way unseen in
Bits and pieces I gladly gave away
And passed along so that
They don’t belong to me
Anymore

As health issues come creeping or crashing into my life, I feel like fighting back. Making sure I’m still out there, doing my thing. I feel the tug of wanting to make a difference.

Perhaps it’s time to rest, dream and even drift through each day. Grateful for living this long. Grateful for opportunities to connect with neighbors near and far.

It seems slow dancing is what’s called for. Listening to internal and external music. Connecting with family, neighbors and strangers. Reading. Listening. Praying for the next generation. And writing my heart out. Preparing for whatever is around the next corner.

Elouise♥

Elouise Renich Fraser, 10 November 2018

6 Comments
November 7, 2018

At loose ends with myself

At loose ends with myself
Wandering up and down
The stairs of my distraction
Overturning this and that
Within my overactive mind
A clock ticks relentlessly
Counting down the corridors
Of tasks undone and words
Never recorded yet dissipating
Into a gray atmosphere silent
And secretive not yet menacing
Though the thought occurs
to me that I am being unraveled
strand by limp strand falling
to the floor of unknown reality

Unraveled. A word rich with possibilities. Terrifying and welcome all at the same time. Loss of control. Change of direction. Once-blind eyes coming out of misty half-truth and patched-together personas. Fragility unbound and hanging out there. Human. Vulnerable. Out of control in the best possible way.

All this and more went through my mind today. It isn’t just about getting older. It’s about getting real. Becoming a real rabbit, a real human being, a real baby. Not just a make-believe look-alike.

Here’s to more loose ends of the fruitful kind. Those that lead to something greater than you or I could ever become on our own.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 November 2018
Image of unraveling butterfly found at movestrongkbs.com

10 Comments
November 3, 2018

white affirmative action

Think of it when you go to sleep at night
Think of it when you walk or drive to the polls
Think of it when you go to church on Sunday
Think of it when you walk freely to the store
Think of it early and often and examine yourself
White gentile woman man or child that you are

By whose decree was this white affirmation
Heaped upon me and those who like me
Had no choice in the color or pedigree of our skin
Yet are heralded welcomed and protected
As the keepers and the color of purity
Angels in the making if not god almighty

Baby steps.
We need baby steps.
We need leaders who don’t look like us
Who don’t mind if our grammar isn’t perfect
Leaders who know the lay of the land
Because they’ve been there and ache
To show and tell the look of life on the other side
The toll exacted by border walls projected willy-nilly
To enhance the purity of so-called whiteness
That never existed in the first place

Humans exist in the first place
And hopefully in the last place
But only if we tend to these tiny shoots
Struggling to breathe and find sustenance
In a stingy, greedy, heads in the sand
Make-believe-we’re-OK land of no return
For this we are called
Out of ourselves and into a great
Mixed company dying to live
Before it’s too late

Thoughts on the eve of our mid-term elections. Can we find our way through this wilderness? It won’t happen overnight or without skilled leaders. Leaders who know about life because they’re already living it from the inside out. Against all odds and upstream.

Here’s how I see it. As a ‘white’ (actually German-Swiss-French) woman who is a citizen of the USA, I benefit every day from affirmative action. I’m on the lookout for skilled women, men and children who already model ways to live in a society at war with itself, without giving up hope and without being naive.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 November 2018

4 Comments
November 2, 2018

autumn love letter

autumn love letter
ripples across calm water
reflecting the sky
fiery burnt orange maples
bend and bow before mortals

The last two days we’ve finally seen autumn’s brilliant colors splashed here and there. They won’t last long this year, thanks to a 9-year warming October weather. Still, they’re brilliant, especially when lit by late afternoon/early evening sun.

The Ando Hiroshige print above caught my eye last night. The poem came this morning. It invites me to take a calming break, preferably in nature, after another week of unannounced violence inflicted by human beings on other human beings.

Pause mode may sound like a futile gesture. It isn’t. Especially now.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 November 2018
Ando Hiroshige print found at pinterest.com; From 100 Famous Views of Edo, Autumn, Inside Akiba Shrine, Ukeji c. 1857

4 Comments
October 29, 2018

Falling raindrops

Falling raindrops
Losses unnumbered
Tears of anguish
Sink beneath ground
Mourning our dead
Prone to collapse
If not eruption

It’s Monday morning, one week from midterm elections here in the USA. I belong to the President John F. Kennedy assassination generation. November 22, 1963, two days after my 20th birthday. A harsh introduction to political realities in these somewhat united states.

And now we’ve just experienced the latest in a string of brutal, overt attacks against people who are our neighbors, whether far or near. This time it was a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ironically, the hometown of Mr. Rogers.

November 22, 1963 was my wake-up call. Not about religion, but about politics. My vote seemed tiny back then. Yet as a white woman living in a nation that routinely disenfranchises and disregards women of all colors in overt and covert ways, my vote counted then and it still counts.

Walking to my voting station counts. Encouraging others to vote counts. Helping others get to the polls counts. Showing hospitality to strangers counts, whether it’s voting day or not.

This doesn’t make up for lives taken by gunfire, abuse, neglect, unleashed hatred and outright murder. Still, their lives are with us when we choose to remember them. As I see it, I’m not just voting on my behalf; I’m voting on their behalf. From the beginning of this nation until now.

So here we are one week from midterm elections. What’s your plan?

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 October 2018
Photo found at hipwallpaper.com

2 Comments
October 26, 2018

elegant feathers

elegant feathers
grace wings beating in tandem
faces resolute
a matched pair of cranes flies south
through autumn’s glowing colors

Yesterday morning this gorgeous photo of migrating Sandhill Cranes came up on my screen saver. Though everything about it caught my eye, I couldn’t stop staring at the Cranes’ faces. Birds of the air on a mission. Lending their beauty for just a few short seconds to the background of the sun and autumn flaming out. Chased by shadows, resolutely flying south guided by an inner compass.

I think I’d like to be a Sandhill Crane when I fly away. Which brings to mind this old song.

Today I’m grateful to be alive, well and kicking now and then. I’m also grateful for the way people and events come together unexpectedly, moving me ahead whether I’m ready or not. Always at the right time.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 October 2018
Photo of Sandhill Cranes in flight, New Mexico; found at ayay.uk.co
Recording of I’ll Fly Away found on YouTube

9 Comments
October 24, 2018

silence of dense fog | health update

pinpoint clarity
flashes bright light on needles
silence of dense fog
wraps thick trunks in mystery
highlights tiny spider web

Despite gorgeous crystal-like drops of water, the overall scene is beautifully murky and mysterious. Which is how I’m feeling today about what’s happening in my life and in my body.

For several weeks I’ve wanted to find a few connections outside my everyday circle of friends and acquaintances. Today I have several wonderful options. Not too many, and not too few. Just the way I like it! More about that in a later post.

In addition, I’ve had some disconcerting health stuff hanging around the edges for several weeks. Nothing specific, but it all takes me to a murky place I don’t understand. Among other things this has included anxiety, lethargy, tremors, and some confusion from time to time.

On Monday I had a 3-month checkup with Dr. K, my wonderful integrative medicine doctor. She reviewed my latest blood work. It looked much better than it did when I began seeing her just over two years ago for adrenal exhaustion.

Dr. K also told me I have three of four genetic markers for CIRS (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome). Think of CIRS as cumulative, chronic inflammation that’s often mistaken for other things. The primary cause: mold buildup in the body. When unaddressed, mold-induced problems can be a contributing factor to Alzheimer’s Disease. About 25% of the population have versions of CIRS.

Unfortunately, people sometimes don’t recognize or attend to symptoms of CIRS in senior citizens. They’re interpreted as part of old age.

I’m taking a couple of easy tests to help figure out what’s going on. One involves a kit that will identify where mold resides in our house. I’m also going to take an online Vision Contrast Sensitivity Test. Then Dr. K will get me started on a treatment plan.

Today I’m cautiously hopeful, and am taking extra care to treat my body well. Like a little baby that wants to be loved and cared for.

Thanks again for listening. I decided I’d rather tell you this than sit on it and try to keep going ‘as usual’ — whatever that’s supposed to mean these days.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 October 2018
Photo found at wallpaperweb.org

7 Comments
October 23, 2018

After scanning today’s headlines —

A rude and rootless nation
Sits in the seat of scoffers
Indignant and outraged
Lock her up!
Lock him up!
Lock them up!
And throw away the key!

Chaff tossed on winds
Of overwrought words
Ruthless and homeless
We drift toward destruction
Lost in the wilderness
Of our own undoing

I’ve almost always read Psalm 1 with my life in mind. It’s a Psalm about choosing the way of wisdom, rather than the way of folly. I still think that’s a fair way of reading it.

Nonetheless, it’s also a Psalm directed to a nation of human beings with human leaders who make choices both wise and foolish. Not that everyone agrees to go one way or the other. There’s more than enough folly and wisdom to share on all sides.

It seems our nation is drifting down the path of folly. Often following in the footsteps of leaders who say and do foolish things. Or who respond to one kind of foolishness with another kind. Equally unrestrained and destructive.

Hence this reading of Psalm 1 as a cautionary tale. If we aren’t part of the wise resistance, we’re in danger of finding ourselves headed downhill along the destructive path of fools. Also known as the wicked who are like chaff driven by the wind. Drifting toward our demise. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 23 October 2018
Photo of winnowing wheat taken in Iran by David Murphy, fineartamerica.com

2 Comments
October 21, 2018

A rambling tribute to my feet

A rambling tribute to my feet
and farewell to stubborn internal
voices calling out to entice me
into showing up at all costs –
the sign of honored membership in a
mythical club of the elderly who
never seem to weary or grow faint

Though yesterday’s good girl has
long since faded into the sunset
I’m torn by desire to ‘be there!’ with
a smile on my face and tormented
feet in my shoes faithfully trying
to catch me up or stop me cold
in my tracks before it’s over and done
lost in a confusion of days and years
of showing up now gone forever

Or how about this? I think I’m finally learning to listen to my feet. Not just my heart, gut or kidneys. I emphatically don’t like having to do this. For years I haven’t given more than a passing thought to my feet.

Showing up (on my feet) is something I’ve done habitually most of my life. My feet made sure I was on time and prepared. On time and energized. On time and ready to work hard. On time and ready to push that boulder or climb that trail to the top of the hill.

If there’s an up-side to this, it’s relief that my feet aren’t scolding me. They’re begging me to pay attention to them. Suggesting I might stop and rest after that glorious walk through the meadow, or that trip to the grocery store. Or I might even give them special treatment the way I give Smudge the cat special treatment every day.

Here’s my bottom line: ‘I don’t want to run my feet into the ground before it’s time for me to join them.’

If that sounds morbid, so be it. It’s my informal mantra for this coming week. What’s yours?

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 October 2018
Photo taken by DAFraser, February 2018 in the Longwood Gardens Conservatory

15 Comments