Poeming: Hovering

In case you thought me dead, not posting for a month, I am indeed quite alive and visiting the GrandBrits (and their parents) in England. The poetry prompt over at Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides this Wednesday was to write an "on the road" poem. This was the result.

I would be the coolest ever if I took this photo--but I didn't.

HOVERING


I lean to the left
but not too far–
enough to keep my
neighbor from
sleeping
on my shoulder
but not so far
my elbow succumbs
(again)
to the metal cart
passing by.
twisting yoga-like
to skip to the loo
(my darling)
out and back in
to my space,
it’s ten hours
on the sky-road
(again)
to see my
grandBrits—
totally
absolutely
worth it.


jle 2013

Poeming after a long absence: "What she might as well have said to us."

I ponder. I call myself an over-thinker. If my body was half as active as my brain I'd be thin.

With most of the credit going to one of my favorite paid friends, my therapist, I've been able to disentangle some of the twisted and intertwined beliefs of childhood from what is true. It's good to know an old dog can still learn a new trick or two!

One of the biggest pieces of chain to be disentangled has been my core belief of myself as a disappointing, useless person. As a child I lacked the ability (and the paid friend) to not take on my mother's view of me as my own. I've struggled for years with feelings of self-hate and the fear of stepping out into the unknown. I mean, what if I screw up---AGAIN?

Part of taking things personally was that, well, they were happening to me personally. The words were said, the actions were taken, my heart was skewered by the one person I believed should love me without condition. But I was wrong, she was broken, she had made choices and so had my father, and the outcome of that was three pretty dysfunctional children. Two of them at least, my sister and me, carried deep-seated feelings of self-loathing. Oddly that feeling makes it hard to trust yourself or move forward in life. And occasionally that raw part of my brain is touched, reminding me of some of the things I've struggled to learn to leave behind as I move into the New! Improved! With Less Damage! part of my life.

Here's one, inspired by the prompt at Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides from July 17.


WHAT SHE COULD JUST AS WELL HAVE SAID TO ME.


my bones are old and getting older

my heart is ice and getting colder

my coming death, it makes me bolder

to say what I want to you.


I once had hope when you were born

but from the womb when you were torn

became your own to not adorn

me as an accessory


 the dream I had you did not fit

you would not mold yourself to it

and so I call you “disappointment”

and block your face from view


I once had thought to touch the sky

and backs were burdened so that i

could climb them all to the highest high

but success eluded me


my bones are old and getting older

my heart is ice and getting colder

and in the weakness of your shoulder

again you have failed me.


jle 2013


Skimmer's Recap: Moms, Dads, you hold some mighty power to shape the way your child views himself as a success or a failure. Use your powers for good!

Poeming: Sister

the Miller girls, Patti on the left, me on the right.

The prompt over at Poetic Asides was to write a "beyond" poem. In search of inspiration i decided to try another new-to-me poetic style, a Cinquain. It's unrhymed and made up of 5 lines and a number of other cool little things to keep track of. Here's mine:




sister

funny sweet

laughing caring accepting

gone beyond my voice

friend




jle 2013

Poeming: Build a Fam.

 The Poem A Day challenge over at Poetic Asides asks us to write an instructional poem for today. Here's mine.

BUILD A FAM.


Marry.

Have children.

Stumble along trying not to make all the same mistakes as your parents.

Add a scoop of your own unique mistakes to the mix.

Save for their future therapy.

Shake well.

Yields 1 family,

keeping the “fun”

in dysfunctional.


jle 2013




All true--except for the "saving" part!

Once upon a time, on the first day of Spring...

a boy and a girl were married.

 

From the day the Boy had first seen her, he knew she was The One. So exactly 2 years after they first formed their household union, they were to make it a permanent one with signatures and flowers and a solemn ceremony.

This ceremony was to take place high in the majestic mountains of the magical faraway land where they lived called "Vail Colorado." There was snow in its mountains, even on the first day of Spring, and the Holy Man who would perform their ceremony was out in that snow performing a different sort of ceremony with 2 poles and 2 flat pieces of wood. His Holy Watch was apparently broken, causing him to rush in late wearing muddy boots.

The Boy, the Girl, a friend named Mildred and the Girl's young and beautiful sister all passed secret smiles amongst themselves on observing the man's muddy footwear, it being irregular indeed to wear such attire to perform this solemn ceremony, and didst bring them a chuckle.

The Girl's younger sister with the naturally occurring dark hair played a stringed instrument and sang a moving ballad to the young couple. The Holy Man attempted to lead the ceremonial participants in a recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Again they passed secret smiles amongst themselves while mouthing words that may or may not have been correct, as the raven-haired sister of immense beauty was the only person besides the Holy Man familiar with the words. And didst I mention she sang like an angel?

In time the Boy grew into a Man, knowing all the more surely that, indeed, she was The One.Their union was strong, unusual in the fickle and self-serving times in which they lived. Their time lasted into 4 decades,  cut short only by her untimely death. The Man and the now unnaturally raven-haired sister still grieve, but as they share the story of The Old Days and the Holy Man of the muddy boots, and of the first day of Spring all those decades before,


they smile.


Skimmer's Recap: Canst thou tell who the young sister may have been? The Girl Bride was actually the pretty one, but she would have found the shameless younger sister's telling of this story amusing.
(Hi Keith! i love you!)

Poeming: One Year. (for Patti)

ONE YEAR.

(for Patti)

One year gone,
the year of “firsts”--
First Thanksgiving
First Christmas
First birthday.
First anniversary.

 

One year gone,
one year since
you didn’t wake up
in the morning,
leaving me dangling
from this earth
by a fraying strand
of thread.

 

“One year gone”
births in me
a baby-sized hope
for the next year:
for less sorrow,
fewer tears,
and a stronger tie
to this earth
where you no longer
live.

jle 2013



Good Grief: Finishing the Firsts.

The adorable Miller cowpersons, Michael Charles Miller
and Patti Susanne Miller (before I came
along for them to pick on.) ;-D

As I'm writing this after Sunday's midnight has carried me into Monday the 11th of March, I feel relief.

The relief comes from knowing all the Firsts I lived through in this past year since my sister Patti died are now over.

The First birthday without her voice on the phone. The First Thanksgiving, the First Christmas. Her First birthday without her presence, daughter Cori's birthday where I tried (semi-successfully) to make the amazing chocolate birthday cake Patti's husband Keith would make for her. And the First weekend one year after she left us Saturday the 10th last year, her peacefully in her sleep, and leaving the rest of us sleepless in the missing her.

No, I don't think for a second that the pain of missing her is over, or that I'll stop thinking, "Oh! I need to tell Patti--" I know better. But I do know the pain that knocked me head over heels like a harsh wind on all those Firsts has spent some of its power in this past year. That same wind will still blow, but I look forward to the gentler breezes of the future as the grief-storm slowly calms.

But I'll likely always still cry a little and smile when in my head I tell her, "I love you!" and I hear her warm voice answer, "I love you more!"


Skimmer's Recap: I think that since the last year has been a crash course in "Suck" that God should give me a pass for the next few years at least. (Pretty please, God?)

Just another Friday mourning.

my sister Patti and her husband Keith in Vail, Colorado.

I seem to be made up mostly of feelings and senses and nerve endings, and for days my body has been warning me "it's coming, it's coming," the "it" being the one year anniversary of my sister leaving those of us who love her behind in this world.

I've almost looked forward to this date thinking "finally I will have finished all 'firsts' and maybe my spirit will calm some." But Death and I have always had issues, and I suppose always will. As a couple of my friends in bookclub said, we weren't made for death originally, we were made to walk in the Garden with God, so we'll always be unsettled with Death.

But as the world now stands, everything with a beginning eventually has an end. Books end. The last piece of cake gets eaten. Spring leaves turn brown in the Fall. Beloved pets and grandmas and sisters eventually have an end. It may be true, but I don't have to like it.

When Friday wasn't so good.

Generally Friday is considered a happy day, the beginning of the weekend, the icing on the cake that was the week. But this last Friday, January 18, was not so good, it was the first birthday my sister was not at the end of a phone, not waiting for the lovely cake or pie her hubby would make her.

Grief seems to be the gift that keeps on giving, keeps on surprising, keeps on jumping out in front of a person and going "ooga booga!" so you pee a little. Friday's date, my sister's birthday, was tucked away there in a corner of my brain. Every so often i'd peek at it out of the side of my eye and watch it getting close and wonder what it had planned for me.

Friday after i woke up i thought "maybe magically the 18th has slipped by me and was yesterday and i can just sigh and go 'oh! My sister's birthday was yesterday, look at that,'" but no. Friday's Grief was just waiting to jump out from that corner in my brain and yell "ooga booga!" And it did.

All day long i fought my emotions. Mostly my eyes leaked and my heart hurt. The hubby was kind enough to let me snot on his shoulder a bit. i just couldn't grab hold of Grief and tell it to stop, it wanted to visit and sit a while.

But like i've learned, sometimes you just have to give in and have that chat with Grief. It can be mighty insistent.

Then her husband called and WE chatted--about Grief, about Patti. About missing her, about funny things she said. About what it's like for him to get up every day alone when he'd spent the last 40 years getting up with her.

"When I was having a hard time getting up for my 8 a.m. class in college, my grandpa told me, 'When the alarm rings I know it's easy to think how nice it'd be to just lay there longer, but when it rings, don't think. Just get up."' Then Keith continued, "So that's what I do. When the alarm rings I don't think. I just get out of bed and get going, take care of the cats, get to work."

And i guess that's what life is and how we keep going forward in the face of days that are not so good: we don't overthink it, we just do it. But some days Grief just grabs ahold of us and gets in our faces, and makes us think, makes us remember.

While i felt like Friday wasn't so good, it ended up good--remembering Patti, remembering things she'd say, things she'd do, laughing together and honoring the loss and the memories. As much as it hurts to do, looking Grief in the eye can be healing.

Skimmer's Recap: Grief is not unlike visiting the gynocologist: not anyone's favorite, but necessary and sometimes even helpful.

Good Grief: Lessons.

My big sister Patti on the left, me on the right.

i keep thinking of what i have learned this past year from grief and my Favorite Mental Health Professional. What with losing my sister in March it was a pretty intense year that way, leading to many posts with the word "grief" in the title. i think it boils down to a few simple (yet profound) things.

1- Give yourself permission to feel all the attending feelings when they come. This means you may have the blubbering-est face in the universe, you will find depths of snot you never knew you were capable of (where does all that come from??) but you gotta do it. If you don't let it out it just stays in there and festers like that stupid sliver you got when you slid down the railing your mother told you not to.

2- Write about it. There are lots of things i didn't even know i felt until i started writing. Talk about pulling my finger out of the hole in the dam! Damn.

3- There's no right way to grieve. Yes there are "steps" like denial and anger and all that, but they are really more just "pieces" of grief, and they come randomly and often all together in a big flurry. And how it feels at that moment is just what you gotta feel to get through it.

This may sound too basic somehow, but trust me on this one, it's the truth of it. i've long struggled with thinking i had to make sure i wasn't bothering anyone else with how i felt, but who wants a festering splinter in their bum?

i talked about "clean grief" in this past year of loss--i know it was partly because there was no major weirdness between my sister and i, so i was able to just feel the loss. There wasn't all the "i shoulda" and "why didn't they?" stuff that can follow along in other more complicated relationships we grieve. And since for the first time i felt free to just follow the tide of emotions, be sadder than sad, be so pissed off at life at God at my parents at my brother, was really cleansing.

Mostly i'm tired from it, and i'm still sad about Patti not being in my world. And i guess i wanted to share these few things because if i didn't know about them, maybe somebody else out there needs to read them too.


Skimmer's Recap: Grieving: it's good. Do it.

Good Grief observes the holidays.

I had read at one point in my grief research (yes, that is me, don't just HAVE it, read MORE about it!) where someone said that month 8 often saw a resurgence of grief for a loved one. So I kept a squiggy eye out for it around November, the beginning of the Season of Overeating.

 

Of course holidays carry their own special sting with the loss of a loved one, and Thanksgiving was no different. I charged cheerfully into the meal preparation, determined to enjoy the process and drag joy out of even the grocery shopping. Dammit, I'm gonna have me some JOY!

And I did. I talked to strangers in the grocery stores, one time offering a listening ear to a man with the "deer in the headlights" look mumbling to himself and whoever was nearby, "Can I defrost a turkey in a day? Should I just buy a fresh one?" I love these moments, because I am not a cook, but I can appear as a Martha Stewart Angel to a stranger. For a moment, (a moment I hold closely to my heart,) I can APPEAR to be an all-knowing goddess. After I told him how much more I had spent on a fresh, brined turkey at Trader Joe's the day before, he decided to buy the fresh instead of frozen one. (Though it may have been the less Martha Stewart part of me and more the *real* me saying, "I dunno, mine is always still partly frozen" that won him over....)

Anyway, shopping came and went, and the chopping and peeling commenced. I remained calm and somewhat joyful. But once the major things were prepped and I went off to shower and get out of my baggy sweatpants and into something more guest appropriate, it hit me.

Even if I didn't talk to my sister every Thanksgiving, even if it was more of a pre or post "What did you have? Who was there?" conversation from our separate states of California and Oregon, I COULDN'T.

 

Not even if I wanted to.

 

Fortunately, this disolving julie has awesome children who actually and weirdly LIKE to cook, and they took over and finished up dinner while I used cold water and makeup to cover up the sudden grief that had overtaken me. Did I mention they're awesome?

 

And now, going into Christmas, I've decorated a Patti Tree, clothing it in her colors of purple, green, and blue. And when I see it I smile. And I hear her saying, "I wish I could be with you guys for Christmas, you're so much fun!" And I think of Patti, and I miss Patti, but I have a sense of her with me, surrounding me.

My "Patti tree" complete with Penny the cat.
Just the way she would have liked it.

 

I'll try to hold onto that happy feeling when it's time to wash the Christmas dishes.

 

 

Skimmer's Recap: Grief is normal, grief is good. Pass the turkey.

 

 



Poeming: In the company of my sister.

the Elder's Christmas tree 2012, a kinder,
gentler tree than the usual julie-riot of reds.

IN THE COMPANY OF MY SISTER


I choose her favorites:
blue, green, purple,
shop
for ornaments,
a blue star
for the top.
My tree is alive with
her colors
and I am in
the company of my sister
once again.

 

 

jle 2012

 

Written for Poetic Asides Wednesday Poetry Prompt of "In the company of _____"

 

 



 

Poeming: She.

SHE


She called me “the deep one.”

 She was the blonde one, the pretty one,

 the petite one,

 so I guess it was good that

 I had “deep,”

 a word purchased by my

 overthinking/

overpondering/

going through the painful process of

being first frozen by the

fear I could do nothing

then moving through

thought-progressions

whereby I would

never trust myself and so

must look at

 

every

tiny

decision

from 57 angles

and would have gladly traded

“deep”

for 

“pretty.”

Written for the poetry prompt to write a deep poem. Deep end of the pool. Six feet deep. Archaeology. Whatever you write, just dig deep.

This one is for my sister Patti. i miss you, sissypoo!!

Poeming: Foster(ing) love.

from wikimedia

Yesterday's prompt over at Poetic Asides was to write a gathering poem and a letting go poem. Mine is a twofer, all in one, and harkens back to the ten years we were emergency infant foster parents for Alameda County here in California.

It seems i had some leftover nurturing i wanted to use. We had two girls, but then i went through a pretty dark time of miscarriages. When that ended in emergency surgery and God slapped me (gently) upside the head to say "Done!" i had an amazing friend who was a foster parent. She always had a baby or two with her, and suggested to me (gently) that i might want to be a foster parent. It took me some time to get far enough past my own darkness to realize that my desire to give love was more related to my heart than my uterus, and perhaps i had been suffering from a simple case of organ confusion.

We dove into the foster care pool.

What a crazy, enriching experience! It opened my eyes to a bigger picture of my little part of the world--the struggles and heartaches and triumphs of a variety of neighborhoods removed from my middle class suburbia. i met people who thought as differently from me as you could get, people whose addictions ran their lives, the relatives who tried to "rescue" them, people who held no value for the child in their womb, and some who wrestled with the decision to give up a baby because they could not afford the two they already had at home so what were they supposed to do about this one?

There were the other foster parents i met too, some committed to caring only for HIV babies, some who seemed to adopt half the children they cared for, some who are still foster parenting well into thirty years worth! There were adoptive parents, both relatives and non-relatives, either fulfilling what they felt was an obligation or a deep desire for a child of their own. And the social workers, trying to find the best answer within the law for that child's welfare, and sometimes having to settle for far less than they would personally choose. It was fascinating and disturbing.

ANYway, the process of bringing a child into your home and your heart is the epitome of gathering, while the letting them go (often to places you personally feel pretty unsure of) is the definition of letting go, often with smiles but often with tears. So here's my poem.

FOSTER(ing) LOVE

I swaddled you in blankets

and my love

and soothed your cries away

in my arms

and nestled you close to

my heart

speaking hope and calm and

“you belong”

and walking circles circles.

 

 

I felt the need to fill 

 your soul

with mother love I missed

when young

so when I last would kiss

your face

I’d know hope and calm and 

“I belong”

your heart would carry always.

jle 2012

i dedicate this first to my friend Adele, lost to cancer in 1999 but living on in the hearts of many, who started this whole thing for me, and to all the foster families who helped me through those years, and who put themselves in sometimes unsafe circumstances so they could help a child. i am thankful for you all!

Poeming: Of pens and wheels.

This particular poem is one of those my husband would say is not a poem, and i guess i agree, it sounds more like just the traffic in my head.( Maybe i'll put together a whole book of my "poems" and call it just that, "The Traffic in My Head.") Anyway, i wrote this out and then spent hours trying to form the line length on the right to be shaped like wheels (that was the prompt today over at Poetic Asides, to write a wheel poem) showing the circular nature of life, but alas, it kept coming out looking more like boobs. i have abandoned that idea for its presentation here, because, as most men will tell you, boobs are too distracting.


OF PENS AND WHEELS.


My mother

used to say “where is the pen that

 is supPOSED to be by the phone?”

and I would think, gee,what is her

problem, she makes such a big deal

out of nothing, and I would answer

her, “I don’t know, why?” all inno-

cently and she would say “because

the pen is supPOSED to stay by the

phone!” and so in my adult life I

have solved this problem by buy-

ing copious amounts of pens and

placing them by the phone /by the

computer /by the kitchen, and

when I want one I think I should

be able to pick up at least ONE of

those many pens but all I can find

is a dead Sharpie and an emery

board and I say “where are all the

pens that are supPOSED to be by

the phone?” and my children shrug

their shoulders and look at me like,

gee, what is her problem, she makes

such a big deal out of nothing, and

they answer “I don’t know, why?”

and look at me all innocently and I

say “because there are supPOSED to

be pens by the phone!” and I sigh

and realize the wheel of life has

turned full circle and I have no

real answers and have turned into

my mother.


jle 2012




 


 

3 Weeks A.P. (After Patti.)

I have an odd feeling of my life being on "pause." That while all around me things are going on same as usual, I am stuck in the realization that the activities and interests I cared about on March 9th suddenly meant nothing on March 10th, the day my sister died.

I've always been one to love projects--at least the idea and planning of projects--and books and yarn and ice cream with friends and going out to coffee. But right now I'm stuck. Stuck in the space in my head and heart that knew Patti as a constant.  But now, the constant of my sister and our shared history and inside jokes is the rug pulled from under my feet. And I'm stuck, trying to keep my balance, Keystone Cops style.

I know eventually I'll find equilibrium. I know that eventually I'll care again about books and yarn and starting a new project before I've finished the last one.

I know eventually I will smile when I see a beautiful landscape she would have loved to photograph, and to laugh when daughter Cori (who Patti seems to have imprinted her attitude on at birth) makes a snarky remark that channels her aunt.

And I know I'm missing her this much because I had her in my life. Our father gave that up when he chose to molest her throughout her childhood. Our mother gave that up when she couldn't accept any of her children unless they agreed with every last thought of hers.  Our missing brother Michael gave that up when he turned his back on us some 23 years ago.

And once again, in the land of my birth family, it's been their loss.

So I'm kind of privileged to be missing her this much, because

*****I have much to miss.*****

Miller kids, left to right: Julie (me,) Michael, Patti

Skimmer's Recap: Missing Patti = "Good Grief."  
I'd like to thank my Mental Health Care Professionals, my family and my friends, for helping me be at least as stable as I currently am. :-)

Good Grief.

The Miller siblings 1956, left to right: Julie (me), Mike, Patti

i like to call it "clean grief." That's the best way i can describe it. A grief uncluttered. A purity of "i miss her" with no complications.

Not that i mean it's an easy grief, for grief to me will always be painful, hitting me out of the blue, taking me to the mat hard at the least provocation.

But with my sister...i just miss her. i miss the reality of never hearing her voice again, or seeing her face, never again sharing a laugh caused by her off-beat, cynical sense of humor. i miss the thought of sharing the good memories of the time i spent with her in the Colorado Rockies. i miss being able to ask questions about our childhood of things i only remember on an emotional, fearful level.

 i miss. i miss.

With other relatives who have died, there have always been the wrappings of the dysfunctional family we were born into: the packaging of accusations that we had not-done-right-by or enough-for the now deceased relative, the bow tied with a flourish usually the pronouncement that We Were Lacking. Guilt, my family loved them some guilt.

With Patti, my only sister (and the only sibling left to me after our brother also decided We Were Lacking and left with no forwarding address back in 1989,) i see no gift wrap of Not Good Enough. She loved me like no one else in my birth family had: without condition. It was a New! Improved! way of relating in our birth family. We had changed things for the better within our gene pool.

That change makes it hard to say goodbye. There is so much Goodness to miss. But at least it's a New! Improved! grief, an uncomplicated grief, untouched by large servings of guilt. My only regret? That i will never again be able to tell her "i love you!" and hear her answer with a smile in her voice, "I love you more!"

i will miss.


Skimmer's Recap: i miss.

3 days A.P. (after Patti.)

How am I today, you ask? Oh, just your regular, everyday sort of devastated, thanks.

Remembering Patti.

When we were young i thought she was the pretty one and she thought i was the pretty one. As adults, when we talked on the phone after i said "i love you!" she would always say "I love you more!"

As young adults, she welcomed me into her home after i had left college and was at loose ends.

When my daughter was born, she stayed and took care of us, feeding the baby in the night so i could sleep, doing our laundry, making my bed each day so it felt fresh when i got back in. We tried every new outfit on the baby like she was a doll.

When our mother had her lawyer send me a letter after her death to tell me what a disappointment i'd been, (though i was the last of her 3 children still speaking to her) my sister helped me through the pain, having made peace years before with the knowledge that our mother could never be pleased.

She loved hard.

She had a wicked sense of humor and could always make me let out a big ol' belly laugh.

i will always remember Patti Miller Woodard, gone at just 62 on March 10, 2012.

i can't believe i'll never hear her voice again.



i love you, Sissypoo, always and forever. <3

Isn’t he lovely?

Who knew, when that bouncing baby boy came to us before Christmas in 1988, he’d be with us 23 years later?

When we began as foster parents back then, we had no thoughts of keeping any children. But what do you do when 3 years later the child you've been loving and feeding is now free for adoption, and you can't imagine someone else coming to collect him and his things and driving away? Keep him, of course.

He has the sweetest most compassionate heart. He knows every movie ever made in the past 20 years, and every video game sold. I can't even imagine my life without him.

It just had to be said. (Especially since I took this really great photo of him after a wedding.)