Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Vulnerability

March 23, 2020

We don’t marry disaster | Happy Monday!

I wrote this poem in September 2017, nearly one year after our 2016 Presidential Election. The situation today is no better than it was then. Even so, there’s reason to hope on this Monday Morning, March 2020.

We don’t marry disaster
It marries us
Unrelenting drought
Genocidal ethnic cleansing
Polio and opioid epidemics
Avalanches of pain and anguish
Wild fires breathing fury
Hurricanes and floods of destruction
Nature’s fury turned inward
Human fury turned outward
Multiplied exponentially

See the pictures in my scrapbook?
Like pages of a newspaper
Good news one day
Disaster the next
See that man who’s smiling?
That beautiful woman over there?
Those precious children looking your way?
The young people who think no one is looking?
There they were just yesterday
And now…..

What’s to become of us?
The ‘us’ that doesn’t exist anymore
Families torn apart
Friends for life now foes forever
Enemies within and without
In whom do we trust?
In whom do we place our hope?
False saviors arise from glowing ashes
Snake oil dealers hawk their sleazy wares

I get up in the morning
And look outside, up toward the heavens
Where the bright face of a newly waning moon
Reflects the light of a new day just dawning.
Two birds swoop silently together into an oak tree
High overhead a silver airplane leaves a misty trail
Fluffy clouds drift beneath a deep blue sky
Signs of hope and reason enough to get up
And live yet another day in my small corner
Of this world filled with small people,
Large hearts and infectious smiles.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 September 2017, reposted 23 September, 2020
Waning Moon image found at moodymoons.com

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March 19, 2020

all the king’s horses and all the king’s men

The taste and sound
of denial parades daily
before clamoring cameras
unaware of disconnects
between reality on the
ground and fake scenarios

Propping up the current
prince who wants to be
king takes effort of the
most subtle kind if one
wants to retain favor
as well as political clout

Looking on I’m reminded
of all the king’s horses and
all the king’s men who
couldn’t put humpty dumpty
together again despite
best efforts to salvage him

and if it weren’t so very
personal I could laugh
at this show of barely
clothed disinformation
parading before cameras
as the real thing it is not

or better yet I might try
raging in disbelief though
today I’m grieving the loss
of our small fragile world
never to be put back together
again despite its deep flaws

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 March 2020
Image found at businessinsider.com, as of 16 March 2020

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March 17, 2020

Sent from above with Love

We were promised
The sun moon and stars
Greatness enlarged
Beyond royal majesty
A thorough cleansing
Of the putrid swamp
And happy days
Are here again
Given the right mindset
And bank account

Today it all comes
Tumbling down to
Moments of stark truth
And reluctant recognition
While flowers of the field
Here today gone tomorrow
Exhale fresh air
Of poppies and daisies
Sent from above
With Love

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 March 2020
Image found at medium.com

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March 15, 2020

uncertainty

silence tiptoes
through the valley
searches for truth
hidden beneath
veiled madness
reverberating
through airwaves
relentless and
undisciplined
first one thing
and then another
without rhyme
or reason
torn into pieces
lives and hearts
skip beats waiting
for the next
moment to fall
redefining
everything

That’s how I’m feeling today. Listening to POTUS talk about the corona virus, it seems he’s making it up as he goes along from one day to the next. Picking and choosing what he thinks someone out there wants to hear? Wanting to show he’s in charge?

I’m reminded again that my life isn’t defined by POTUS. Yes, his behavior and undisciplined mind and feelings matter. Yes, he makes what’s already difficult even more difficult.

Still, he doesn’t have the power to define who I am. Today is Sunday. A day to be wise, truthful and happy as I learn to enter the fray one fiery sunrise after another.

Parts of Psalm 23 come to mind, reworded a bit.

Because You alone are leading me,
I have more than enough
to walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
especially when I fear I don’t have
what I need to get from here
to the end of my earthly journey.


© Elouise Renich Fraser, 15 March 2020
Photo found at churchofthemessiah.com

4 Comments
March 8, 2020

Sunday morning silence

Small floor heater hums
Smudge rearranges himself
Next to radiator pipes
Refrigerator labors to maintain chill
Table clock whispers each tiny tick
Silence seeps through my bones

Outside my kitchen window
Neighborly trees stand at attention
Calm surveyors from above
Testing winds of change
And chance encounters
A dog barks in the near distance

All things considered, I stayed home this Sunday. What will happen next? The question is on my mind in more ways than one.

As for today, I’m grateful to be alive, awake and able to write.

As a writer, I’m turning a corner. Though I’m not sure what to call it, I know what it isn’t about.

It isn’t about feeling good. Nor is it about highlighting lovely side roads without acknowledging exactly where we find ourselves today.

It isn’t about making myself or you happy, or trying to keep myself out of trouble when trouble is spelled t-r-u-t-h.

Not just truth about what’s on the surface, but truth hidden at the heart of what feels normal but is not.

Easier said than done, I know. Yet that’s part of the tug. Trance is a tricky subject, with tentacles that reach everywhere.

The future of our neighbors, our country and this globe is worth our best efforts. Beginning with Sunday morning silence.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 March 2020
Photo taken by me this morning, 8 March 2020

2 Comments
March 6, 2020

From where I sit today | Politics

We have yet again reduced our integrity as a nation by resorting to a white-male-only race for the Grand Prize, President of the USA.

Cloaked in our national Trance, we appear unwilling to acknowledge our collective history, or make changes from the top down. Instead, we find ourselves yet again fighting from the bottom up.

I know whom I don’t want as President of the United States after the next election. I also know I won’t have as President of the United States a woman of any color at all.

Our nation remains deeply invested in Trance mode. After centuries of practice, too many of us are highly skilled in stepping around and over our inglorious past, making nice, and believing we’re the greatest.

In addition, we’ve been bought and/or sold to the highest bidder so many times we don’t always recognize when it’s happening.

This doesn’t mean past elections were simply another version of what we’re seeing today.

Forget about Russian or other foreign intrusions into our elections. We have uncounted, unaccountable home-grown intruders flying under the radar as well as in plain sight. They’re enabled by our current President plus too many national and local leaders willing to tolerate injustice in order to maintain their own political agendas, life styles, or access to the Good Life.

For each woman who announced her candidacy to become President in this environment, I say Kudos! The crushing weight of USA-style white male dominance began early in our history. What you have done was daring, courageous, and visionary.

I’m not saying women are perfect. Nor are we, on our own, the solution to our descent into warring madness.

I am, however, saying we, as a nation, cut off our own hands, feet, and huge portions of our brains and hearts when we ignore, belittle or misappropriate the gifts of women in leadership.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 March 2020
Image found at learn.kqed.org

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March 3, 2020

Uneasy in my own skin

Uneasy in my own skin
Now turning on me
If not one thing
Then it’s another

I love my dermatologist
Except when the phone rings
and the voracious analysts
want one more piece

of my disappearing body
bit by bit they cut and scrape
burn and stitch so often
I can’t remember when

I was once a whole woman
Or was it a tiny little girl
Fresh from the oven
Ready for sacrifice

To the sun goddesses
And my tan is better than
Your tan even if it isn’t
At least I didn’t blister!

I think the poem says it all. Yesterday afternoon I got a call back from my wonderful dermatologist. Two bits of my flesh passed with flying colors. They’re not sure about the third. So yes, they want more. Not what I wanted to hear.

Still, here’s to outstanding dermatologists who don’t always get to deliver good news. Without them, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today. Not because of nips and tucks, but because of many small and a few larger patches of skin they recognized as problematic.

So…..have you been putting off a visit to your dermatologist?

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 March 2020
Image found at publicdomainpictures.net
Sunbathers at Tybee Island Beach near Savannah, Georgia

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February 25, 2020

Thank you, Anita Hill

I’m reposting this in honor of women who stand up to power today,
and in light of news about the Harvey Weinstein case. 

In October 1991 I listened to your courageous testimony about Clarence Thomas. Your words took me back to my first boss. It was 1960. I’d just graduated from high school and was now a clerk in a bankruptcy court. We called the boss ‘Judge,’ though he was actually a referee in bankruptcy. He’d held this governmental appointment for years. He was about 60 years old; I was 16.

By 1991 I’d told only my husband the truth about my first boss. From the beginning, the Judge was on a mission to take me down a notch or two by way of sexual innuendo and outright inappropriate behavior toward me. He knew I was under-age, that my father was an ordained minister, and that I was a Christian. He said he was a Christian, too, and reminded me from time to time of his church membership.

I didn’t know what hit me. I got through three summers plus one full year, thanks to the friendship of other women working in the office, and the kindness of a few male attorneys who knew the Judge and witnessed some of his behavior toward me.

Back then the term ‘sexual harassment’ hadn’t been invented, or connected to Abuse of Power as an issue in the workplace. In addition, my childhood home where I still lived didn’t offer a safe place to talk about anything related to sex.

Flash forward to October 1991, and your testimony before the Senate Committee. I owe you a huge debt of gratitude for at least two things.

  • First, your personal account was the first I’d ever heard from a professional woman talking about repeated sexual innuendo and inappropriate behavior in the work place.
  • Second, your courage gave me courage to begin talking about this without fear or shame.

I’m sad this happened to you. I’m sad things happened to me. I’m sad things like this still happen every day to others.

Am I angry? Yes, I am. Angry that even in today’s reports from powerful women about powerful men, we’re still using the language of “if this is true.” Which conveniently overlooks the power imbalance that was in place when the alleged behavior happened. To say nothing of optics and the appearance of evil that seems now to be embraced, not avoided. Embraced, and laughed at in a zillion cartoonish ways.

We are not the world’s latest sleazy entertainment opportunity. We are women with every right to stand up and tell the truth about what happened and didn’t happen to us. And why it must stop now if we’re ever to be Great. Not again, but for the first time ever.

May God grant us serenity to accept what we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Thank you for showing me how this is done. Not just then, but throughout your professional career.

Respectfully,
Elouise Renich Fraser

For a 2016 PBS News Hour video discussion between Gwen Ifill and Anita Hill, click here. It’s outstanding.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 13 November 2017, reposted 25 February 2020
Photo found at gq.com

4 Comments
February 24, 2020

On a cold morning

Like clockwork
On a cold morning
in February
the air comes alive

Fluttering wings
and hopeful
wannabes
strut their sweetest songs

A maybe pair
of small song sparrows
flits from twig to twig
male in patient pursuit

While nearby
streaking through air
landing on a dime
and taking off again

beak stuffed with
twigs and detritus
a tireless common pigeon
weaves a crude nest

Fragile hope springs
from the ground
sending up small fireworks
of purple and gold

All seen in my backyard this weekend and this morning. I think I’ve got the pigeon nest spotted, just outside my kitchen window. They’re not the most exotic of birds, and their offspring look like awkward adolescents. Still, I’m won over by the parents’ loyalty and their remarkable ability to endure all kinds of weather without abandoning each other. All in my backyard.

Happy Monday!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 February 2020
Photo of wood pigeon nest found at commons.wikipedia.com

4 Comments
February 18, 2020

Sunday morning musings

Sunday morning
Sitting near the back row
In a neighborhood church
Pondering the reality
That I am now one of the
Old Folks at Home
An aging white woman
Wondering what on earth
I have to offer this generation
Drowning in possibilities
I never dreamed about

A life —
That’s all I have
A life already lived
Partially grieved and celebrated
Now halfway resting
In this odd space
Called retirement with
all the time in the world
yet no spare time to be found

So what’s left to offer?
Just one thing comes to mind —

Smiles
Free smiles and maybe a kind word
No manipulation
No smirking
No hesitation
No holding back
No looking away
No pretending not to see
the child or young person before me
carrying an invisible cup running over
too often with confusion, self-judgment or worse

Smiles
That’s all I have to offer
Smiles that say
With or without a word
I’m so happy to see you today!
Smiles that reflect our Creator’s delight
in each child or young person’s beauty
whether they get this yet or not

Simple things. That’s what I can do. No promises made. No lists of things to do after this moment. Just a smile and a silent prayer for that child or teenager already dealing with the heaviness of being in this world. Who can’t relate to that?

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 February 2020
Photo found at pinterest.com

7 Comments