evening tide ebbs
evening tide ebbs
gently wipes the beach clean —
an old woman smiles
***
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 January 2018
Photo found at pinterest – Portrush Beach, Ireland
Telling the Truth
connecting the dots of my life
Tag: Beauty
January 29, 2018
January 25, 2018
raindrops
sparkling raindrops
fly headlong through sunlight —
cascade of diamonds
It happened so fast I almost missed it. Leafless trees shaking off fresh rain highlighted by a sudden burst of blazing sun that captured millions of diamonds flying through the air. Within seconds the sun had retreated behind gray storm clouds and everything looked as it was before. Wet.
It made my day. One of those sudden gifts, unanticipated, fleeting, and rare. Everything lined up just right, including my head turning to look out the window. Except for this. That’s not my photo above. It’s a substitute for the real thing stored in my memory.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 25 January 2018
Photo found at staticflicker.com
January 22, 2018
setting sun
setting sun
kisses cold western sky
clouds blush
The magic lasted only seconds, and this photo captures but a reminder of what my eyes saw. And still I’m drawn to it. A magnificent flame-out at the end of the day.
I wonder, are we not meant to flame out in the last years or moments of our lives? I picture the human spirit about to set off into another world. Sometimes in dire circumstances, yet always still a living human being. Never without beauty even though our eyes may not know how to see it.
Do I know how to see beauty when the photo or the reflection isn’t beautiful by my standards? We seem to have become a race obsessed with beauty. Searching for it, measuring it, trashing it and moving on quickly if we don’t find it in the moment.
I’ve often felt disappointed about what I see in the mirror of my life. Not all of it, but significant chunks of it. These days I’m beginning to see it differently. I see the reflection of a woman making her way slowly, yet surely, from one revelation about herself to another. The kind that often come at the end of the day. Beautiful to behold.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 January 2018
Photo taken by me with my IPad, 21 January 2018
January 19, 2018
chilled to the bone
chilled to the bone
night’s deep silence descends
winter drifts through cracks
***
Disconnected from feelings
Numb and disbelieving
I want to write
So many unknowns
So much at stake
So little time left
Will I or Won’t I?
Sooner or Later?
Is Never still an option?
This week brought unwelcome news in a couple of areas. No catastrophic accidents. Just the knowledge of things I didn’t want to hear. About a friend and about my health.
Yesterday we drove through Valley Forge National Historic Park. Outdoor temperatures were subfreezing. Snow was on the ground, covering a thin layer of frozen sleet. We saw one brave soul walking his beautiful dog along one of the paths that circle and cut through Valley Forge. Everyone else was in heated four-wheel vehicles driving through the Park.
I didn’t write the haiku above after that drive. But it captures some of the angst and foreboding perhaps encoded in the few remaining buildings and cabins still standing here and there throughout the Park. Remnants of a winter nightmare followed by springtime diseases that took more lives than winter took.
They thought they would be going home to their families and friends.
foot paths meander
through fields of wartime sorrow —
home to the fallen
I want to find my way home. Don’t you? Life is filled with breathtaking beauty. The kind that makes leaving it breathtakingly painful. Right now I’m being invited to play life in a different key. And my cold fingers are stumbling around a bit, learning to be at home in what doesn’t always feel like home.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 January 2018
Photo of cabins at Valley Forge found at history.org
January 16, 2018
Why writing feels dangerous
Last night I read about a woman who couldn’t get in touch with sensations in her body because she felt disconnected. Numb.
I relate to her. All my life I’ve experienced numbing out—sometimes on purpose; other times as the general go-to mode of my body. That means I feel out-of-place, lost, or just not interested in the vulnerability of connecting.
Years of neglect also hang out in my body. No wonder I get weary and can’t always stay awake emotionally. Perhaps some part of me has lost its memory or its ability to function with and for me.
And so I move on to something else instead of sitting with it. Or wondering about it, loving or even soothing it. Or welcoming it as a major part of the woman I’ve been and have become.
I’m a writer. I want to connect with what’s going on inside me, not just with thoughts running through my mind. I want to listen to myself, speak from within myself. Yet I’ve guarded so much for so long.
Can numbness lead to death? I don’t know. Perhaps I’m hiding from my voice. Sometimes I’m apprehensive about what I might discover or write and then let go. Even before I understand it fully.
From the moment I became a living human being, You’ve been there. Even when I was too terrified to be there. Too terrified to sit quietly with whatever was going on inside this woman I keep calling ‘me.’
Am I afraid right now? I want to believe You hold me close and won’t let me stray far from home. Yet I still think it’s my job to keep myself from straying. Maybe that’s why writing feels dangerous. My words are out there. I can’t control how they’re read or used or abused. Or heard and dissected.
A voice seems more fragile than a body. More connected to soul. More vulnerable to attack. Yet when I’ve done my best to be truthful, and have given it away so that the river moves on within and through me, I’m not sure what else I can do except build a dam.
I know about dams. I’ve constructed many in my lifetime. Little dams. Big dams. Complex, contorted, impenetrable dams. Trying desperately to escape the truth about me.
And what if the truth about me is beautiful? Lovely? What then? Have I killed it?
A small Christmas cactus blossom rests in front of me on my desk. A lovely, fading pinkish magenta. Its fragile petals look like limp gauze wings folded around its core. It isn’t ugly; it’s dying. Doing what lovely flowers do after giving themselves away.
It’s the only way to live. Not forever, but in this present moment. My calendar lies to me daily. It promises more than it or I can deliver. I want to live this one day as if there were no tomorrow. No more, and no less.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 15 January 2018
Photo found at pxhere.com
January 8, 2018
silence settles
silence settles
fills cracks in evening darkness
ticking clock whispers
It’s my favorite time of day. Quiet and dark, nothing making a sound except the hum of our refrigerator, water gurgling through the radiator, my heartbeat echoing in my ears, and the calm, super-quiet tick of my now-ancient desktop clock. I bought it in Germany in the 1970s. It sits on our kitchen table, faithful and timely for nearly four decades.
Last night I was bemoaning (only slightly, mind you) my housebound captivity during our early winter cold spell. I’ve always enjoyed this time of day. I get to read a little, write a little, eat a little snack on behalf of my blood sugar, and often listen to evening hymns—singing along if I’m so inclined.
So last night I decided to write a haiku about my evening surroundings. Writing it was more than enough to calm and lift my spirits. If I can’t walk in the woods, I can wander through my house of memories. Surrounded by reminders of where I’ve been, how many amazing people and places I’ve known along the way, and the beauty of late evening silence.
Happy Monday!
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 January 2018
Photo found at pixabay.com
January 5, 2018
Playing my card – a poem
,
Is being born female a scar?
A blemish a blot an
unfortunate role of the dice?
Something to disguise or
hope might fade over time?
Mind your scar dear
You wouldn’t want to be
laughed at, jeered at, taken
for granted or trashed
Here love let me help you make
the most of your scar perhaps
then they won’t notice it so much
Who knows
you might even win adulation
and a real man if you play
your scar card just right
Remember you’re in this
for the long haul so buck up
and smile like a million dollars
someday you’ll be rewarded for
your dumbed down version of
the woman every man wants
Not to worry there’s still plenty
of time to make your mark you
just need to keep at it no cracks
in the façade
Don’t get me wrong dear I’m not
saying you haven’t been doing it
the right way
It’s just that the cracks in your
scar are showing and we wouldn’t
want you to bleed all over the place
and your clothes
So you’ll just have to stop picking
at it and let it heal the way it’s
supposed to heal all flat and flawless and
invisible just like you
This is my attempt to capture the ethos that informed my growing-up years, as seen today through my adult eyes. I would be less than truthful if I said this kind of approach wasn’t also part of my professional life. It was. Gratefully, by then I had a company of women and some men who helped me make it through. Not as a scar on the face of humanity, and not all flat, flawless and invisible.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 January 2018
Photo taken by my father in 1947 — Seattle, Washington, with Daughter #2 (of 4) and a young friend
January 5, 2018
winter wonderland
winter wonderland
set to blazing music —
brilliant sun’s playground
OK folks. It’s fun and games time! As you see, our area got snow yesterday, but very little compared to others along the Northeast corridor. That’s D doing his faithful duty before it all turns hard, icy and ugly with dirt and grit.
The temperature outside is brutal, and will be for the next few days. But from the inside, the view is spectacular. Since we live in the Northeast, we own plenty of layers–as you can see on my tall and quite fit D. He’s had that down jacket for years–the Scotsman in him just can’t give it up.
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 January 2018
Video taken by me with my iPad, 5 January 2018
January 4, 2018
powdered snow
powdered snow
pirouettes on storm-tossed wind
iced firs sparkle
A winter wonderland set to silent music blowing here and there – rising and falling – whirling, twirling and sweeping rooftops at will. This morning’s glory—enjoying it while it lasts.
The naked snow pairs nicely with a poem I read this morning. It’s from a gathering of larks: letters to Saint Francis from a modern-day pilgrim, by Abigail Carroll.
Here’s the poem.
Dear Son of Pietro Bernardone,
Nicodemus had nothing on you:
When he heard, You must be born again,
he wondered how on earth
to climb back inside his mother’s womb,but you knew precisely what to do: remove
your clothes in the public
square, by your nakedness loudly, irrevocablydeclare whose you were, whose you chose
to be. It was a start, and though
the bishop tried to spare you shame, protectyour rich father’s name with his holy golden
robe, hide your tender
olive frame, you refused. Instead, walkedshoeless toward the winter woods wearing
nothing but a hair-shirt
and a song (in French, no less). Priestto beggars and sparrows, hills, and the lilies
of the field, it wasn’t long
before the lepers took you for their own.Francis, what was it like to finally belong?
With admiration,
© Abigail Carroll, 2017, a gathering of larks, p. 14
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 2017
What does it mean to go ‘all out’ in order to live a life of openness and truth? Nature shows me how, without the agony of having to decide what to wear or which dance it will be today or what to eat or not eat. Even closer to home, with whom will I stand when push comes to shove?
There’s something about the nakedness of a wild snow storm that’s terrifying. The little sparrow being hurled by my kitchen window this morning comes to mind. He was able to land in a shrub, but barely.
Unpredictable winds of war and change are here, whether we choose to acknowledge them or not. I pray for grace to let the Spirit’s wind carry me where it will, depositing me where I belong, with my voice and spirit intact.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 January 2018
Photo found at shutterstock.com
January 3, 2018
majestic wings
I.
majestic wings
hang in winter air
descend slowly
II.
bird of prey
touches down in old oak tree
folds majestic wings
I can’t decide which haiku I like better, so you’re getting both versions! I wish I had a video of what I saw out my kitchen window this morning. I don’t know what kind of raptor it was, but it was gorgeous. Especially its wings–much like the osprey in the photo above, but probably not an osprey. I watched for a few minutes before it took off. It was surveying our yard and a neighbor’s yard. Looking for breakfast, no doubt.
We had a little ‘heat wave’ today. That means we got up into the high 20s (Fahrenheit). Tomorrow promises a shock to the East Coast, especially in New England. We may wake up here in the Philadelphia area to wind chill in the range of minus zero degrees Fahrenheit. And snow, of course, along with strong winds. So today included a nice walk with D outdoors in the winter sun, and a trip to the grocery store.
Hoping this finds you enjoying the outdoors as much as possible.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 January 2018
Photo found at audubon.org
Telling the Truth 