Blogging | Telling the Truth

May 26, 2018

A little poem and some gorgeous photos

Sometimes I don’t know what to say. I just know there’s something inside that wants out. So here are bits and pieces that come to mind.

First, a little poem. Yesterday I went to see one of my doctors. As I was driving away, I saw an older couple making their way along the sidewalk across the street. I wrote this when I got home.

fragile and disheveled
the woman inches along
behind her walker —
sunlit hair gleams in the light
shining from her partner’s eyes

I hope I’m so happy when I’m that old. As for right now, I’m grateful for D who has done a lot of heavy lifting during the last three years. Often accompanied by one of his gorgeous smiles that begins in his eyes.

Second, one of D’s favorite things to do is record flowering shrubs around our yard. Here are some of his latest captures. Those are periwinkles at the top. Happily invasive, I wish they would completely over-run the ivy along our driveway.

blossoms outside my office window, Azalias below

Lilac blossoms below

and Spring Christmas cactus blossoms in our kitchen

Third, a photo I took this morning with my Ipad after I got back from an early morning walk. D had just finished mowing the yard, and the peonies were irresistible.

Finally, one more photo I took in the house. Smudge is sitting in his new (now old) favorite space, watching us clean things up in the kitchen. You can see his battered red birdie toys on the floor.

Gratitude. That’s what’s on my mind today. I’m grateful I’m alive and connected to so many people I never thought I’d meet in just this way. Blogging is part of what’s kept me going for the last four years. I could, I suppose, do it without you. But it wouldn’t be nearly so rewarding or life-changing for me.

Hoping you’re having a great weekend and Sabbath rest.
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 May 2018
Photos taken by DAFraser and ERFraser, Spring 2018

16 Comments

May 18, 2018

A new health challenge

In January I posted this haiku, poem, and longer comment under the title ‘chilled to the bone.’ The photo is from Valley Forge.

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.

Since then, I’ve given a lot of attention to my new health challenge, working closely with my integrative doctor. I’ve also gone back and forth, wondering whether I want to write about it. The answer is Yes. Partly because not writing about it directly is getting in the way of writing at all.

I’m now one of thousands of people living with Alzheimer’s markers–ApoE4 and E3. This means that as a woman, I’m at 27-30 percent risk of getting Alzheimer’s by age 85. Right now, at age 74, my risk is close to 5-7 percent.

Dr. K, my integrative doctor, ordered a test for this and a few other genetic markers in January. Hearing the results felt like a bucket of ice water coming at me from nowhere. And there it is. And here I am. Dr. K is now ordering a few more blood tests every three months to measure as clearly as possible what’s going on inside my body.

I’ve always thought of myself as at least semi-immune from even the possibility of Alzheimer’s. In large part because I don’t know of anyone on either side of my family who suffered from this disease. I now know different, and may need to pay more attention to my family’s genealogy.

So what am I doing about it right now? If you know me well, you know I’m a book reader. So I purchased a book recommended by Dr. K. It isn’t the answer to reversing Alzheimer’s. It does, however, include information and protocols that can help ANYONE become less susceptible to this disease. You may already know about it: The End of Alzheimer’s: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline, by Dale E. Bredesen, MD.

The book doesn’t promise what it can’t deliver. However, it lays out a program that’s healthy for anyone, sensible if sometimes difficult to manage, and filled with different ways to meet the goals of the program. It won’t heal Alzheimer’s. It can, however, delay onset or help reverse some kinds of cognitive decline — even though you’re not able to follow every recommendation all the time.

Given my status, it would be foolhardy not to do what I can to help my body. This includes not just my brain, but my heart and the whole nine yards. Having seen positive changes in a few areas since last January, I’m encouraged to do what I can — especially because it makes good health sense for me.

I’m already in the last chapter of my life. I don’t know how it’s going to play out. I pray for grace to accept what I cannot change, and grit and courage to change what I can. Along with opportunities to write about it from various perspectives. Which I began doing in The Memory Unit.

Thanks for visiting and listening.
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 May 2018
Photo of Valley Forge Winter found at pinterest.com

27 Comments

March 21, 2018

Yesterday evening – a prayer of lament

Most evenings I take time to jot down how I’m feeling. Sometimes I’m so weary I can scarcely keep my eyes open.

But yesterday evening was different. I’d spent time that evening going through old files from years of teaching and being a graduate student. Part of me was laughing and enjoying seeing some of the cheeky things I’d written in my younger years. The other part of me kicked in near the end—a little voice that wouldn’t let me go.

So when I sat down in the late evening with my journal, this is what I wrote to God—a prayer of lament, I think.

Oh God, I feel so empty tonight—so out of touch with the woman I am today. It seems my best work and my most memorable efforts are all in the past. Filed away in boxes of paper crammed with words—so many that I scarcely recognize myself back then.

Where did they all go? — Those words, ideas, images, insights, sparkling clear roadmaps to my past life and thinking and feeling.

They seem much more alive and important than anything I might manage to eke out today or tomorrow. Such high hopes and noble ambitions. And now this?

Please look kindly on my confusion through the eyes of Your merciful providence, and give me gratitude.

Then I went to bed and promptly fell asleep. A bit sobered, yet grateful for memories of so many good women and good men. And for the privilege of having touched their lives, and been touched by theirs.

I’m not the woman I thought I was when I arrived at the seminary to study or to teach. Or even when I began this blog.

Today I’m working on a piece for later this week. It’s about one of the most difficult subjects I’ve had to deal with personally and institutionally, as a member of various churches and as professor and dean at the seminary. Sexuality.

Thanks for reading and listening. And for helping grow me into the woman I am today.
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 21 March 2018
Photo found at pixabay.com

2 Comments

March 17, 2018

the red cardinal

the red cardinal
sings his bright clear spring song
perched on bare branches

When I published my first post, Dear Dad, on 27 Dec 2013, my voice was anything but bright and clear. Singing was definitely out of the question. As a survivor of childhood PTSD, I used an elaborate strategy of calculated silence and half-truth.

How much did I owe the world? How much did I owe my family? How much did I owe the church? My father was a clergyman. Revered, respected, loved and sought after by people with sorrows such as mine.

But I wasn’t one of his followers. I was the first-born of four daughters. I had to watch my tongue constantly. Smile when expected. Stifle tears. Do as I was told. Set an example. And take the beatings like the contrite spirit I was not.

Breaking my silence of decades took decades. It started when I was in my 40s, with trips to Al-Anon meetings for five years. There I learned to relax and share things I’d never told anyone. Then I worked with an intern therapist who helped me complete a genogram (family tree, with notes). Finally, in the early 1990s, I began working with a psychotherapist with whom I’m still connected.

I put in hours and years of work. Did tons of homework. Cried buckets of tears. Filled unnumbered journals with dreams and personal entries.

Yet my recovery isn’t measured in months, years or numbers of pages written in journals. It’s measured in my voice. At first feeble, halting, self-conscious and terrified. Beginning with my husband and immediate family, then with my sisters and parents, slowly but surely with several trusted friends, and finally, a few years before I began blogging, with my large extended family on my father’s side.

My voice is the measure of my recovery.

Regardless of the weather, the political climate, or my health, the question is the same: How free am I to tell the truth? That’s the thermometer that matters.

I’ve always cared about issues that have to do with women. I used to think that getting a decent academic position would somehow ‘prove’ my worth. Or set me free. Especially if I was granted tenure.

Well, that wasn’t my riddle to solve. My riddle was my voice.

I began blogging because I knew it would challenge me to tell the truth freely, with words chosen by me, not by someone else.

So the little red cardinal outside my window caught my attention. The ground was covered with snow, and the laurel bush had been beaten down by more than one Nor’easter. Yet the little red cardinal was singing his heart out. Freely. Telling his truth about life and announcing his territory and the hope of spring.

Though I’m a follower of Jesus, I don’t believe this makes my life easier. In fact, I’d suggest it makes it more difficult because it means both living and telling the truth. Especially when it’s most unwelcome or unexpected.

Many thanks to Candice for this topic! Though I’ve already written elsewhere about this blog, this is another way of looking at it. Equally true and challenging.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 March 2018
Cardinal duet found on YouTube

10 Comments

February 24, 2018

Don’t call me Sweetie

This morning I’m feeling backlash. Not from out there, but from inside. A reminder that I’ve moved into a new chapter of my life. It’s time to state yet again, for myself, who I am and who I am not.

Here’s my older version, written in response to my father’s insistence that I was less than this:

I am a mature, responsible adult woman.

Here’s my updated version, written last night. Longer, and in your face because that’s where I am right now. Strong, not all sweet and charming.

I am a mature, responsible, intelligent,
wise and sensitive adult woman of a certain age.
My name is Warrior or Elouise —
not Sweetie, not Cutie, not Little Old Anything,
not Over the Hill and
not Out of Order.

Finally, here’s my well-loved, frequently used mantra that’s good for all seasons:

I am God’s beloved daughter-child.

You can mess with me, but don’t be surprised if I mess right back at you. Not that I’m an expert on everything. I’m not. I am, however, a Fast Learner with nothing but time to lose. This is, after all, the Last Chapter of my life, and time is running out.

I’ve watched this past year as young women and young men of all colors and ethnicities have stepped up and spoken out on behalf of justice, mercy and sanity.

My generation cut its teeth on issues such as feminism, segregation and Viet Nam. Today’s young adults are dealing with their own laundry list of horrors, some passed on by my generation. For example,

random acts of violence against people of color, immigrants and targeted religious believers
mass murders in schools, towns and cities across the USA
the breakdown in local and national legislatures over how to protect the most vulnerable among us
sexual abuse run rampant for generations regardless of ethnic, national, economic or leadership status
bathroom wars and fears about who can use which facilities, especially but not only in schools
the power, abuses and addictive lure of social media and pain killers
steady rise in suicides among young people

I want to do what I can to support these young adults. And perhaps learn a thing or two. How? I don’t know. That’s part of the fun. I’m just going to keep writing and listening. And see what happens next.

12 Comments

February 19, 2018

Am I ready?

Hesitating
My fingers languish
On the keys

Life
Flashes before me
Inviting my company

My heart
Skips a beat
Am I ready?

Dear Friends,

This past week was wonderful. Going through old files and notebooks told me more about my past than I’d remembered. And I didn’t get through everything yet.

Thankfully, my home office is about half transformed! I focused on files and piles, not books and drawers. Breaking my jaw nearly two years ago brought ‘normal’ life to a sudden halt. And the piles began getting larger and larger….

Hidden in all the files and piles, I found several gems. Things I hadn’t read for years. I even read one piece out loud to myself. It was the Sunday morning ‘sermon’ I gave at our last Renich family reunion in 2012. I wrote it so young children in the room would know exactly what I was talking about.

That was the first time I’d ever talked to my extended family about my troubled relationship with my parents. The room was full of family members from at least four generations. I was a trembling wreck after I finished and sat down. I hadn’t yet begun blogging. I just knew I it was time to do this.

Now I’m at another milestone—still blogging, and with the end of my life approaching more visibly than before. ‘The last chapter’ sounds ominous. However, I see an opportunity to write about things I’ve not written about before. Some new, some old. None of it easy.

During the past week I wrote a haiku on most days. I don’t plan to stop that discipline, or writing poetry. I want to let my heart speak to other hearts. I believe that’s what drove Jesus of Nazareth, though some of his words were difficult to hear.

What I practiced giving up for Lent last year is still relevant. This year I’m thinking about it in terms of my writing voice and my desire to let my heart speak to other hearts. I’m using the same litany as my guide:

I let go my desire for security and survival.
I let go my desire for esteem and affection.
I let go my desire for power and control.
I let go my desire to change the situation.

Quoted by Cynthia Bourgeault in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 147 (Cowley Publications 2004)

As always, thanks for listening.
Elouise♥

11 Comments

February 10, 2018

Taking a break to dream

Dear Friends,

I need a break. Not from you, but to listen to my heart and body. I’m serious about being in the last chapter of my life, and want my writing to reflect this without being morose, and without chasing after things that don’t matter that much on any given day.

For several years I’ve wanted to reorganize my home office to make it user-friendly for me as a writer. Today it still reflects my past as an academic and volunteer against human trafficking. Too much stuff hanging around!

So this week, with D’s good help, I’ll get going on that. Most of all, I want to dream about where I’m headed with my writing in the next months and years.

Here’s the bottom line:
I’m not closing down my blog
However, I won’t post anything for at least this coming week

In the meantime I pray that Lent, which begins on Valentine’s Day, will draw us closer to ourselves, to each other and to our amazing Creator who still chooses to walk with and among us daily. Incognito.

Thanks for being here, and for your encouragement.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 10 February 2018
Image found at barbarabenedettelli.it

10 Comments

January 20, 2018

being at home

being at home
in her spacious small body
the caged bird sings

My life has felt unusually restricted this winter. It seems outrageous. Here I am, an adult woman with my working years behind me, and ‘nothing’ to do but record thoughts going through my mind.

I’ve almost finished my slow reading of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I’ve been on the lookout for times when the caged bird sings. Times when it seems there’s no way out. No way to reverse what’s happening. Until someone begins singing or writing or speaking, creating a different reality. Intangible yet real.

In addition, this morning I read the following lines from a favorite book on writing.

We can travel a long way and do many different things, but our deepest Happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences. It is born from letting go of whatever is unnecessary, and knowing ourselves to be always at home.

Sharon Salzburg, quoted in Gail Sher’s book, One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers, p. 36, Penguin Group 1999

As Gail Sher puts it, “Home is where writing happens. The writer’s desk is a miniature world. Self-contained. Hopefully quiet. Anywhere else is somewhere else.”

It’s easy to write about somewhere else, or wish I were somewhere else. In someone else’s body or circumstances. I’m as prone to wandering as anyone. Besides, I think I’ve already had more than enough to say about myself.

Yet here I am today, feeling a tug to say more. In particular, more about my relationships with men. And saying it in a way that sets me free. The way Maya Angelou’s words about her life set her free.

Though my life might seem tame when compared with others, I used to think I would rather die than talk about my history with men. This past week I pulled out notes I made years ago that will help me do this. It’s important, because I believe my history with men was driven by things I was looking for. Not by something inherently wrong with me.

In the end, I want what sometimes has felt like a cage to be part of my home. The platform from which I sing.

8 Comments

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.

19 Comments

December 9, 2017

This isn’t what I expected

I wrote the free-verse poem below last night after writing a long journal entry about the current state of my life. The poem is an open letter to my Creator. An attempt to lay it out just as it is, given unexpected health events of the last few years that seem to have hemmed me in.

This isn’t what I expected
This endless run of days and nights
Wondering why this and not that

Retirement was a golden orb
A sparkling promise that kept me going
Until I couldn’t go any longer

There’s so much to love about it
That it feels like betrayal to say this:
I don’t feel retired; I feel disappeared.

Disappeared from what’s happening
Disappeared from minds and memories
Disappeared from action, whatever it is today

I wake each morning wondering
What will be the meaning of this day?
What will it add up to when the sun goes down?

Writing is a gift and blessing I gladly receive
Not going to work each day is also a blessing
Until I no longer have any ‘real work’

No need to be somewhere at a certain time
No collaboration about things that make a difference
Or participation in discussion about things that matter

And there’s the rub—this strange reality of just being
Instead of measuring myself by what I do
Or how many people are counting on me to ‘be there’

Is it really enough to take care of this tired old body
With its growing list of limitations and special needs?
Is this the meaning of my life at this time?

Please advise.
Elouise

P.S. to my Dear Readers: I’m grateful beyond words for your presence in my life. Blogging is my lifeline. I can’t imagine the last several years without it. Thank you for being here—many of you from the beginning. I pray you’re finding hope and peace this Advent season, no matter what your current circumstances may be.

8 Comments

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