Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Category: Writing

December 29, 2016

Don’t lose heart!

Renewal: urban renewal, spiritual renewal, book renewals (from the library), renewed vision, renewed strength, and renewed energy.

A-ha! Renewed energy! I long for it, yet experience it these days in tantalizing bits that often dissipate overnight.

From the day I was born in 1943, I began dying. Stranger still, everyone around me thought I was just revving up. Maturing. Developing. Becoming a mature, responsible adult woman.

Which means on my way to death. Right?

No one lasts on this earth forever. How dismal can it get? I’m not a pessimist, but I’m also not a gung-ho optimist, so finding my balance from day to day is dicey.

My tock is ticking down. Relentlessly.

Yet I feel more myself than ever before. More at peace with who I am, if not at peace with everything that happens to me. And yes, I want to be renewed. Who doesn’t?

Renewal hurts. Something has to go. Or be altered. Even then, renewal isn’t guaranteed. Especially if I think I’ll get back what I just lost. So that my life can go on ‘as usual.’

Things falling apart is usual. Making do is usual. Total restoration of all bits and pieces of me is neither usual nor guaranteed in this life.

This past year, things fell apart. Unexpected visitors (heart problems, broken jaw, Lucy pacemaker) moved in to stay. When I’m willing to stop, accept, and listen to them, they free my spirit and my writing voice in ways I don’t understand.

So I haven’t lost heart, and I pray you haven’t either. For me, renewal is happening alongside things falling apart internally and externally. Especially renewal of my inner-woman voice that leaps out of my fingers when I sit down at my computer.

Thanks for reading and listening!

Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 December 2016
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Renewal

10 Comments
December 28, 2016

Pillage: I loathe this word

I loathe this word I don’t want to say
Nothing about it attracts me
Or suggests anything to say about it
Much less use it in a sentence 

My abhorrence lies in its power
To bring images to mind —
Images that compound this world’s evil
Leaving no peace for victims 

Yet one image alone gives me hope
It’s stronger than these robbers —
The image of Jesus Christ
Whose birth we just recognized 

I imagine JC—not the Superstar
And not Jesus meek and mild
Rather, JC storming the bastions of hell
Within and without 

Cleaning out the stench of our stables
Knocking relentlessly on our doors
Anointing our scars and wounds
With oil of healing and compassion 

JC turns pillaging on its head
Inside out and upside down
Not with the flick of a magic wand
But in his life of full allegiance
To the One who sent him to our aid —
Victims and perpetrators alike

How can we not welcome his appearance?

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 December 2016
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Pillage

5 Comments
December 27, 2016

A Quiet Ovation

stand_of_eastern_hemlock_and_white_pine_in_tiadaghton_state_forest_pennsylvania

~~~Eastern Hemlock and White Pine, Tiadaghton State Forest, Pennsylvania

No applause and no honors
Just the ignominious grinding
Of metal on wood
The thud of heavy bodies
Hitting the ground
Two old warriors
Honor intact
Upright as ever
Hospitable and welcoming
Home for the homeless
Food for the penniless
Grubs for the grubbers
Free and plentiful
Now deemed dangerous
Too unpredictable to ignore
Lest they do irreparable harm
Not of their own choice

This morning at 8am sharp the execution squad arrived. No ovations for them, be they ever so skillful. They came to take down two loyal friends who stood by me day and night for decades. Quietly and gracefully they shared their beauty, their shady branches and their contribution to the ecology of my life.

Their health, despite insect attacks, became their downfall. Too tall, too massive and too dangerous to stand between neighboring houses. And yet…home to squirrels, any number of small native and migrating birds combing their trunks for insects, and their branches for cone seeds. Eastern (Pennsylvania) Hemlocks.

I didn’t keep count of how often I woke up to a catbird, cardinal or wren perched on a limb just outside my bedroom window, singing a morning song. Or squirrels chasing each other up and down their trunks, chattering incessantly. Or the times I was up in the night during windstorms, watching their branches swaying to and fro, huge trunks tilting with the wind—dancing in it, unafraid.

I gave my towering friends a small ovation this morning—even though they were about to be taken down. I’m not a card-carrying tree hugger, but I have hugged trees in my lifetime. Large trees just like these. The kind that never get replaced in a lifetime.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 December 2016
Photo found at wickipedia.org
Response to WordPress Prompt: Ovation

6 Comments
December 26, 2016

elusive retreat

gray overwhelms

dreary drab

shades of life

without color

body aches

tears pile up

unable to retreat

one more day

one more year

lost forever

bar clanks shut

on doors creaking

weighted down

heavy chapters

in a book

never written

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 December 2016
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Retreat

6 Comments
December 23, 2016

Discovering the Road to….

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Rita!

Last June I was newly freed of jaw wires, scraping the bottom of my barrel called Energy, frantic to stop my weight loss.

I’m not normally a quick convert to programs described in NYTimes Bestseller Books. But this time I was out of solutions. So I cast myself upon simple yet stringent requirements for Turning My Life Around, as prescribed in one of those NYT BBs.

Every morning, without fail, follow this simple discipline. Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments
December 19, 2016

Are you relaxed?

kindergarten-class-tacoma-washington-1940s

Annie Wright Schools Kindergarten — Tacoma, Washington in the 1940s

It’s 1948. I’m in kindergarten in El Monte, California. I love kindergarten. I love my kindergarten teacher. I adore rest time!

The routine is always the same. Rain or shine. At the appointed time, each of us picks out a brightly painted plank of wood – blue, green, red or yellow.

I carry my red plank to the middle of the room, find a little space between classmates, put the plank on the hardwood floor, and lie down on my back, on my make-believe bed.

I also shut my mouth and close my eyes. Until it’s perfectly silent, my kindergarten teacher won’t begin the fun part. Read the rest of this entry »

16 Comments
December 18, 2016

Advent and Post-Election Questions

light-shining-in-the-darkness

The votes are cast; the election is over. I feel lost. Not because of changes in me, but in my context. Who am I now? Which way will I go? What about tomorrow?

I want to plead with God for a different outcome. But heaven is silent. The votes were cast, and the election is over. Read the rest of this entry »

11 Comments
December 15, 2016

How to be Wise, not Good

I grew up believing the Bible would teach me to be a good girl. The other option? Ignore the Bible and grow up to be a bad girl. I just needed to read the Bible, study it, and take it to heart. 

Maybe I’m trying to split a hair, but I don’t think being ‘good’ is the same as being ‘wise.’ Many ‘good’ girls grow up to be like fools. Not all the time, and not by choice. Sadly, they weren’t encouraged to learn the meaning of wisdom—not just as an idea, but as a way of life.  Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments
December 13, 2016

Her bespoke face

Her bespoke face
Betrayed no provenance
No signature or style
Save those life etched within each line
each scar and curve of chin and cheek 

No sign of props placed here and there
To hold it all in space
No awkward look or heavy paint
To dazzle or illuminate
Just a canvas standing there
With pleasant eyes of burning depth
and mouth with upturned corners 

Quite suddenly she smiled at me
And said hello-how-are-you?
One of a kind I see – said I –
With hat tipped to my Maker.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 13 December 2016
Response to Daily Prompt: Bespoke
See definition of bespoke here.

17 Comments
December 12, 2016

Heav’n and earth shall flee away

It’s bleak. Outside and inside. Cold, damp weather. Unpredictable tears. Aches and pains. Low energy. Missing my family members. Worldwide tragedy and political uncertainty. You get the picture.

As always, music helps me refocus when I hit low spots. Last night Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments