Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Category: Spiritual Formation

January 18, 2019

For all the saints

weary spirits
laid to rest lie soft
on winter’s snow
breathless we linger
beneath the heavens

Written in light of

  • Motionless trees coated with snow outside my kitchen window
  • Frigid temperatures and a gray sky
  • Recent and long-ago deaths of family, friends, strangers, poets and irreplaceable bright stars in our lives
  • Escalating upheavals of the last few years, locally and globally
  • This season of reflection and resolution

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 January 2019
Photo of Sycamores in Central Park found at 123RF.com

6 Comments
January 16, 2019

Making music from my heart

Last November I gave myself a 75th birthday gift – a piano coach! So here’s an update on my progress so far.

  1. I’m totally motivated to play the piano, though not the way I used to play it.
  2. Though I haven’t yet met with my new piano coach, I’ll soon begin working with him once a month.
  3. I’ve gone through most of my piano collections, have chosen five for starters, and am already practicing regularly from them.
  4. I’ve also been reading The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart, by Madeline Bruser. It’s phenomenal. Just what I need right now.
  5. Not surprisingly, my attitude toward life in general is changing, too. More from the heart, less from my to-do lists.
  6. My happiness/contentment quotient is on the rise.

Below are the five collections I chose for starters. I first worked with them in the 1950s when Mrs. Hanks was my piano teacher.

  • J.S. Bach: Two-Part Inventions, and The Well-Tempered Clavichord (Book 1)
  • Frederic Chopin: Preludes for the Piano (Book IX)
  • Felix Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words
  • Pianorama of the World’s Favorite Dances, compiled & arranged by Denes Agay for Piano

Here are three things I’m working on from The Art of Practicing.

  1. Mistakes (when playing the piano) are part of life. They aren’t the end of the world. Get used to them, and get comfortable with other people hearing you make them. I don’t like this, but I’m learning to live with it.
  2. Speed and agility will (or will not) come in time as my fingers are (or are not) ready. Forcing things, or assuming I can do now what I did 60 years ago) only makes things worse. As I already know. Sigh.
  3. Don’t get in a tizzy about speed and dynamics. Slow down. Ignore dynamics for now. Do what you can from your heart. Love the sound of each note and listen for the music within, not for what seems to be on the page in front of you. Trust your fingers to let you know when they’re ready. Magical!

Finally, I’m learning to accept the hands and flexibility I have now. This means some music I used to play is beyond me. No amount of forcing my fingers will guarantee the return of my youthful fingers. On the other hand, I just might be surprised down the road if I’m willing to take it slowly, without super-expectations.

Thanks for visiting, and Happy Wednesday to each of you!

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 16 January 2019
Image found at pinterest.com

7 Comments
January 15, 2019

Possibilities

Sun streams
Through windows
Of my heart
Warm and open
Welcoming and
Tentative

What will today bring
Of joy and beauty
And will my heart
Welcome it
With open arms
Chilled to the bone

My desk is cluttered
With possibilities
Waiting patiently
To take root and grow
Peripheral flowers
Of the field
Bits and pieces of heart
Given away
Despite the anguish
Of saying goodbye

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 15 January 2019
Photo found at fromthegrapevine.com, taken at Spring 2014 Flower Show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

8 Comments
January 12, 2019

My mother’s body

Time
and again
This is my body
broken

My mother’s body
haunts me
A living reminder

I stare through windows
wondering
how we traveled
so lonely
for so long

Misplaced
inadvertent flowers
bloom
without rhyme or reason
out of season
now out of time

Looking
into a mirror
I catch her
watching me
wondering

Lost birds
flutter on the ground
unable to spread
their wings and soar
together

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 12 January 2019
Painting by Natalya Zaytseva; found at ssatchairt.com

10 Comments
January 9, 2019

the sound of nothing

Blush-pink morning clouds
Paint the sky peachy sherbet
Fresh from last night’s raucous rain
Now gathered in mud puddles

Outside my bedroom window
Venus shines in the east
Birds soar through chilled air
Graceful trees sway to and fro
Freed by the sound of nothing

This morning’s quiet was welcome, especially given the bluster and chest-thumping offered up daily by our news feeds. Huge plates overflow with hand-wringing, fact-checking, posturing and dissecting served up fresh, minute by minute. Starvation diet. That’s what it feels like. Even the best scenarios aren’t enough to sustain us.

Nature isn’t God. Nor is Nature a meek little lamb. Nonetheless, when seen through eyes of faith, Nature becomes a vast, open, accessible tutor about life.

My daily challenge is to stop, look and listen. Though the music isn’t always beautiful, it always points to truth. A welcome respite from today’s clamorous voices, and a reminder that we are all finite. This current state of affairs will not last forever.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 January 2019
Photo of Venus at dawn found at flickr.com, taken by Joseph Brimacombe

5 Comments
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