Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Self-reflection

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

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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, irrevocably

declare whose you were, whose you chose
to be. It was a start, and though
the bishop tried to spare you shame, protect

your rich father’s name with his holy golden
robe, hide your tender
olive frame, you refused. Instead, walked

shoeless toward the winter woods wearing
nothing but a hair-shirt
and a song (in French, no less). Priest

to 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

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December 29, 2017

next spring’s gold

next spring’s gold
stuffed in brown trash bags
waits curbside

This morning I was out and about doing stuff that needed to be done. On the way home I couldn’t help noticing all the leaf-bags lined up curbside, waiting for a ride to the dump. Just before entering the dump, there’s a place to deposit dead leaves or other acceptable yard waste. Then, next spring, anyone living in the township can drive over and get a truck or van load of the stuff. Free.

So there’s my haiku for today, along with my short if not spectacular take on it. Plus one other thought. What’s true in nature is also true in our lives. What you or I most want to get rid of might be one of the greatest gifts we’ve ever received. Especially if it looks like dead or rotting leaves.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 December 2017
Photo found at palhwy.com

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December 28, 2017

my icicle

winter chill
creeps through sunlit air –
icicle sparkles

There’s only one icicle. It hangs outside my bathroom window. Lonely? Maybe. Definitely an outlier, since we haven’t had a decent ice storm yet, and our gutters are almost clean.

So there it hangs, too cold to melt, though it shrinks a bit every day. Yesterday we had another deep freeze day—with more on the way.

So what’s a lone icicle to do? Nothing. Just hang there and let the sun do its work—casting rainbow colors, glistening, showing off flaws that look like the work of a master sculptor. No dripping. Just hanging there, shrinking a bit every day. Disappearing.

I don’t often emote over icicles hanging from our gutters. They’re usually growing longer by the day, sometimes too heavy to let nature take its course. So D grabs an old ax handle we keep by the front door, throws open the windows, and whacks them to the ground.

But not this little baby. It’s there just for me. A mirror of sorts. I’m too cold to melt quickly. I’m shrinking a bit every day. And it seems I’m going nowhere for now. So there’s nothing to do but hang there in all my glory, catching and reflecting every little gleam of light that comes my way.

I had a small epiphany this week. I’ve heard a lot in the last years about just ‘being’ instead of ‘doing.’ A wonderfully freeing concept–until you can’t ‘do’ so much anymore. Yet God wants me to show up every day. Just as I am. No more and no less.

So what does it mean for me to show up right now? Sometimes the most obvious things escape me. But this week I finally got it. I show up by writing! It’s so simple. I don’t have to write something in particular, but whatever comes to mind as I hang there just under the gutter. Cold, shiny, changing every day, ready to reflect rainbow colors or nothing more than the morning sky and clouds.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 December 2017
Photo taken by me with my iPad – sunrise, 26 December 2017

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December 19, 2017

mountain of sorrow

mountain of sorrow
strewn with graves of the slaughtered
cannot forget

I wrote this after watching a special report last night on the PBS News Hour. It included video of hastily dug stone-marked graves for men and boys slaughtered on Sinjar Mountain during genocidal war against Yazidis in Sinjar District, Iraq.

It caught my attention because it happened in the last several years, just ‘yesterday,’ right before our eyes. Genocide is an attempt by some human beings to disappear other human beings from the face of the earth. Uncounted numbers of men, boys, women and girls were found unworthy of belonging to the human race. Their crime: being Yazidis.

Advent has its dark side. A Jewish baby born to a young unmarried Jewish woman will one day be judged by his own people and others, and declared unworthy to belong to the human race.

His crime? Speaking the truth about people who populated his world. Sometimes it was unwelcome truth, delivered in unconventional ways. He didn’t hold back or grease the hands and reputations of religious leaders, politicians, or everyday human beings like you and like I.

Nor did he hold back in showing us how to live, speak, and die for truth. Especially when other human beings are being disappeared.

This challenges me. I don’t want to be among the disappeared. Nor do I want to collude in the disappearance of others. What does this mean for me, looking ahead?

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 December 2017
Photo found at thestar.com

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Video | December 18, 2017

Advent and Lullabies

evensong
wraps today’s anguish
in lullabies

Living with unexpected physical challenges feels like a roller-coaster ride. Up one day, down the next. My short list of essentials for each day is simple: write, read, listen to or play music, exercise, rest, and prepare food as required for my diet. Sometimes my energy level is up, and I’m able to do everything and then some. Other days, I pare it down.

I’m not in love with this situation. Nonetheless, over the last two years I’ve accepted my wellbeing as my number one priority–not the way the house looks, or showing up for gatherings I used to attend regularly.

As the first-born of four daughters, I learned to neglect my own wants and needs in favor of caring for others. Today I often think of myself as the little girl I once was. I focus on listening to her and comforting her–acknowledging in the present that she still lives in me and still needs affection and affirmation.

All I have is one moment at a time–the precious gift of the Spirit of my Creator. Writing has been my best tutor when it comes to connecting with myself in the present. It’s demanding, but immensely rewarding when a haiku or poem begins to take shape on paper because it’s taking shape in me–echoing what’s going on inside me. The haiku above is a case in point.

Even Jesus wasn’t born into this world immune to tough choices or anguish. I can imagine his earliest comfort included lullabies. They also work for me. Especially when I sing them to myself as a way of bringing my past into the present.

The Christmas Lullaby tune above is “Restoration” from William Walker’s shape-note song book, Southern Harmony. It’s an old American tune, sung here by Doc Watson.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 December 2017
YouTube video found here 

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December 14, 2017

bleak winter knocks

bleak winter
knocks on the door –
my heart leaps

We’re in the middle of an unusually cold, windy December. Too cold to do my normal outside walking. Gusts of wind rattle our old house, toss garbage cans around in the driveway. Our cat Smudge goes on high alert.

It’s also Advent, time to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. I can’t help making the connection between our bleak winter and one of my favorite Christmas carols, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” words by Christina Georgina Rossetti.

The last verse is my favorite. I memorized it when I was a child.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.

As a child I didn’t understand what it meant to give my heart. Today I understand more, but not everything. It’s comforting to give my heart to the One who knows me best. Especially when bleak winter comes knocking at the door in the midst of uncertainty and change. Perhaps my small heart will warm and comfort this Child who is so like and unlike I am.

Advent blessings to each of you, from my heart to yours.♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 December 2017
Photo by David Byrne, found at http://www.85mm.co.uk
“Bleak Winter,” Scotland

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December 13, 2017

startled birds

startled birds swerve
surfing updrafts and downdrafts —
thick tree trunks sway

As seen early this morning. Birds and trees dealing with a turbulent, invisible ocean of air.

I’m looking out a window in our heated house, wondering whether I could survive outdoors. It’s hard enough to survive inside.

Life is turbulent. It isn’t easy to surf icy blasts of unexpected change and disorientation. Witness the last few weeks and years, with more to come.

Sometimes I wish I were more like birds riding updrafts and downdrafts, swerving and turning with the wind. Or like huge tree trunks that sway precariously, yet survive virtually unscathed.

Then again, maybe they figured it out ages ago, and have tried for decades to show me how it’s done. I think I’m beginning to catch on, though it still takes my breath away.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 13 December 2017
Photo found at pinterest.com

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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.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 December 2017
Image found at rccbonsecours.com

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December 8, 2017

afternoon sun

late afternoon sun
warms exposed tree limbs
waiting for winter

Yesterday afternoon I walked outdoors in bearably cold weather. The bright sun was low in the sky, already dropping beneath tree tops. I could feel the warmth on my face, and wondered whether tree trunks and branches also felt the warmth.

How odd that trees shed their protective leaves for winter and face wind, sleet, snow and ice with bare limbs. We humans, however, pile on layers so thick that we’re scarcely recognizable in our winter combat suits. Especially as we age.

It’s challenging to see trees accept the coming winter stripped down. Naked. All their graceful, awkward or broken architecture clearly on display. Not as a sign of aging, but of strength. Perhaps even courage?

I’d like to think so. In part because I’ve always wanted to be a tree — or at least a poem lovely as a tree. A tree with roots sunk deep into the ground, finding rivers of water in underground sanctuaries untouched by human hands. Still producing fruit in its season.

Happy Friday and happy walking!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 December 2017
Photo found at Shutterstock

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