“Right There I’m Sort Of Glued Together”

Last week, doing warrior pose in yoga class, I remembered how, right after Trump had been elected, my usual teacher, Annie Hoffman, was out of town—so we’d had a sub that day. A wonderful teacher, the sub had prepared a themed class; a series of poses and movements readying us to become women warriors. “Cool idea,” I thought; my body felt differently. Moving slower and slower as if weighted down, I finally stopped altogether.

“What’s going on?” the teacher asked.

“I’m not ready to be a warrior yet,” I realized. “I’m still too sad.” ( So she Immediately set me up in a restorative pose. Where I cried. And felt my muscles twitch and relax.)

Since the tax bill vote I’ve been in a funk. (Yes, today’s news from Alabama is definitely lifting my spirits!) After a year of being a warrior, though, I no longer deny my occasional need to crawl under my quilt for twenty-four hours. “Re-covery,” my yoga teacher quips.

When in this melancholy state, a favorite Rilke poem, “Title Poem” from The Voices, always comes to mind (Eerily apt vis a vis that tax bill, yes?) :

It's OK for the rich and the lucky to keep still, 

no one wants to know about them anyway. 

But those in need have to step forward, 

have to say: I am blind, 

or: I'm about to go blind, 

or: nothing is going well with me, 

or: I have a child who is sick, 

or: right there I'm sort of glued together. . . 

And probably that doesn't do anything either. 

They have to sing, if they didn't sing, everyone 
would walk past, as if they were fences or trees. 

That's where you can hear good singing. 

People really are strange: they prefer 
to hear castratos in boychoirs. 

But God himself comes and stays a long time 
when the world of half-people start to bore him.

“I’m Sorry”

My first day at my new, Lynchburg, Virginia high school, a classmate confronted me: “You’re a Yankee, aren’t you?”

In a baby-blue shirtwaist, a white cardigan with pearl buttons draped across my shoulders, fourteen-year-old me nodded.

“I hate Yankees,” she snarled—and recited horrific facts and figures regarding Sherman’s march to the sea.

“But I wasn’t even alive, then,” I sputtered indignantly. “That was the Civil War!”

“Civil?” she pounced. “There was nothing civil about it!”

Nearly sixty years later, what might I now say to that woman?

“I’m sorry, ” I’d begin, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book underpinning my careful words. “What Sherman did was unspeakable—well, no, that’s the wrong word. Because you and I, we need to talk about that bloody, horrible war. You and I need to talk about how that war was about maintaining a “peculiar institution.” Let’s talk about slavery, you and I. And I need to talk about the unspeakable injustice my Pilgrim ancestors did to the people whose land they stole. We both need to acknowledge our shared history of oppression. We need to own that our forefathers were the oppressors! So, to begin, Carole Fielder*, let me say this: I am truly sorry for what Sherman did.”

And I would mean every word.

*Voted Most Likely to Succeed by the Class of 1962

“I Praise”

“Sam,” a ceramic created by Shelly Ann Moore.

“Despairing for the world,” I spotted her just as she about to get off the 85 bus. In a white, lacy, off-the-shoulder blouse and no-nonsense dark skirt, a black, canvas bag touting the name of whatever tech/Kendall Square conference she was about to attend slung over her bared, coffee-brown shoulder, she exuded confidence. Anticipation. Smarts. “Young, gifted, and black,” indeed. ( Need I add STEM-strong, too?) And, suddenly, because women like her lived in this broken world, too, my grief lifted.

A few weeks later, having just bought “Sam” at a craft fair in Ventura, California, I told my husband and brother-in-law that story. Falteringly I tried to put into words why this figurine so powerfully spoke to me.

“You suddenly saw another version of the future and a world you wanted to live in,” my brother-in-law offered.

Close.

Yes, mysteriously, Sam does somehow invoke that lifting, hope-filled moment on the 85 bus.

She does more, though. Weighted, burdened, as all Women Of Color are, nevertheless Sam persists, she stands, bending but unbowed. Because she’s “under the Power” as Shelly Ann Moore, her creator, put it. And, thus, ironically, her clasped hands remind me of a favorite poem by, yes, an Austro-Hungarian man:

O tell us, poet, what you do. –I praise.
Yes, but the deadly and the monstrous phase,
how do you take it, how resist? –I praise.
But the anonymous, the nameless maze,
how summon it, how call it, poet? –I praise.
What right is yours, in all these varied ways,
under a thousand masks yet true? –I praise.
And why do stillnesss and the roaring blaze,
both star and storm acknowledge you? –because I praise.

Who’s Looking?

[Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, June, 2017]

Easily overwhelmed, I’ve learned the best way for me to experience an art exhibit is to slowly and reverently—yet randomly—stroll through a gallery and let everything on display silently surround my senses until That One Work hits me between the eyes. And on Sunday, at the Speed Art Museum’s “Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art,” that’s exactly what happened. When I saw this one. This Carrie Mae Weems photograph that so slyly references Wyeth’s “Christina’s World.” And yet, oh dear lord, declares so much more!

For here, literally in black and white, is witness! Showing up. Using one’s body to powerfully speak Truth. Here is a woman of color owning everything in that photograph. Everything. Those plantation columns; how those overhanging trees frame her body, every blade of grass, the soft, hot breeze, the curve made by her antebellum dress, how her hair is dressed, what aperture to use, the light; The Light. Hers. Carrie Mae Weems. All of it. Hers.

Yes.

Light Breaks Through

[Through a meetinghouse window, May, 2017]

Having spent the day before with a dear and loving friend, settling into meeting for worship on Sunday I found myself reviewing the kinds of love as if Philia or Storge were ice cream flavors: yum!

My personal New York Super Fudge Chunk? Agape. So, as I reviewed, true to (her intense and transcendent and grace-lit) style, Universal/Unconditional Love declared herself In The House so powerfully I was almost brought to my feet to shout Hallelujah!

But didn’t for the same reason I hesitate to write about this, today. For what came to me was a Bible passage getting a lot of play lately. Some might say THE Bible passage; John 3:18: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. . . ”

As a pre-Easter Christian and a woman of faith who experiences God as a verb and not a male pronoun, I’ve carelessly (and callously?) dismissed this sentence. Until Sunday. When it hit me that I’ve carelessly skipped over that . . . so loved the world that. . . bit, too.

But that’s the thing about Agape. It won’t be ignored. She won’t be ignored. Her powerful Love, a warm blanket to keep you warm or to beat out fires* will not be denied. So she’s asking me to find Love in the second-half of John 3:18. She’s asking me to explore if there’s Something in the post-Easter Jesus I need to experience. She’s grateful I didn’t get to my feet on Sunday; she wants me to try to write this, today, as carefully and tenderly as I can. Because we both know how much John 3:18 means to others. (Philia is also In The House.)

So I’m listening. Tasting. Testing.

*as a speaker noted on Sunday

Holding All of It

[Damp, Caped Kid; Honk! Parade, October, 2016]

I’m holding a place for transformation. I’m holding a space for Love.

And, apparently, when it comes to the vulnerable, the preyed upon, I’m holding my breath.

This morning, much to my surprise, I realized I’d been holding on to unacknowledged fears—and horror—around the grisly murder of a young woman. (Trigger warning.)

How I came to realize these unnamed, unrecognized feelings isn’t important. This is:

Most men I know, even the most peaceful, loving and compassionate, would find my stirred-up feelings puzzling. They’d point out how rarely something as horrible as Vanessa Marcotte’s murder ever happens—while acknowledging that, yes, other women, alone and vulnerable, are accosted, too. Murdered.(They’re nice guys, remember? Decent.) But then they’d remind me how the media feeds on fear; how I was manipulated by the mainstream press with yet another story of a young and pretty white victim— what about murdered young women of color, transgender women? They’d remind me that the opposite of Love is Fear. Why was I giving in to my fears?

All that is true. But, after acknowledging their right-thinking, here’s what I’d tell them: “Dear ones, here’s what I need for you to understand. I believe that I relate to this horrible story differently from you. I believe I understand vulnerability and being preyed upon differently from you. I am claiming my authority. As a woman.”

“Noli Me Tangere”: The backstory

[“Noli Me Tangere” by Patricia Miranda, 2005]

It was years ago, in the midst of the random opulence and higgledy-piggledy of Boston’s Gardner Museum, that I fell in love with Mary Magdalen. This one. “I may not yet know how to love Jesus,*” I thought, instantly attracted to Raphael’s redhead. “But, ohmygoodness, will you look at her! Such love!” For what I somehow understood—oh sweet mystery!—was how Mary Magdalen’s tenderness, her love, her oil-painted kiss embodied agape: transcendent, universal, non-sexual love. A love so powerful it transcended my feminist queasiness to see a woman, any woman, on her knees kissing a man’s foot. Oh, my!

So, back in the earliest, stumbling-around days as I explored how I might share my novel, Welling Up, online, I examined Jesus and Mary Magdalen paintings—both to discover what various artists’ work might teach me and, of course, because, a website needs art! I looked at lots and lots of paintings. Like this one.

Maybe, if I hadn’t already viewed Fra Angelico’s “Noli Me Tangere,” Patricia Miranda’s painting would not have caught me eye. Maybe. But I think Miranda’s stripped-down to-its essentials version of this biblical, “Touch me not,” moment would have intrigued me no matter what. Yes, knowing its backstory enlarges my appreciation of her work—but will you look at what she’s done?! Those ardent yet non-touching hands stretched towards each other, hands that speak of that same transcendent love I’d been moved by at the Gardner? Those somber, funeral colors coexisting with three robust, verdant trees and Latin written with luminous, gold leaf? That mysterious, white trapezoid off-center yet somehow dominate?

So you can imagine how excited I am that the very first thing you will see when you open up WellingUp.net—to be up and running in a couple of months if all goes well—is this painting. Which I have permission to use. (And, perhaps, you’ll also understand why I’ll need at least one more post to say all I want to say about it!)

Thank you, Patricia Miranda.

* “The post-Easter Jesus” I now know to label.

Numbered

[Shipyard, Gloucester, MA; 2016]

On the thirty-first anniversary of the Challenger tragedy and the same, infamous day Muslims were being refused entry into this country, I saw “Hidden Figures.” That such an unlikely competitor to “Rogue One” has been such a surprising, box office hit for much of January; well, I just had to see it. Especially after hearing what Leslie Jones had to say!

It’s not a great movie. And yet it’s a great movie. “Based on a true story,” there are moments when I thought, “Yeah! Right! Never happened like that. No way.” (The Kevin Costner and a crowbar scene, for example. C’mon!) But hyper-aware of the Trump-era world outside that movie theater, it was easy to forgive Hollywood silliness. Because, dear God, do we need good fables right now! We desperately need stories that applaud, that celebrate grit and brilliance and math and science and sisterhood and the idea that when one of us succeeds, we all do. (Both Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer say this at different times in the movie.) Because, as many brilliant people like Joanna Macy believe, what’s happening right now, as terrifying as it is, is actually the death throes of an Old Order. A new era is coming; I truly believe this (if Orange Fingers doesn’t nuke us all, first!). And we’ll need uplifting (pardon the pun) stories to guide us as we move into that Brave New World.

“The World Will Be Saved by the Western Woman.”*

[Venice Metal Worx, Venice Beach, CA]

In high school Latin we’d been taught that “E pluribus unum” had actually been a Roman salad recipe! So in this time of great transition (and fear) I’m wondering what our country’s salad bowl looks like. How out of Many is there One? What holds (or stitches) us/US together?

My Number One response to that question? American Women. Can I get an Amen, Sisters?

*The Dalai Lama

I Am White/I Am A Woman

[Willow Sculptures, Oslo, Norway Botanical Garden, October, 2015]

I am white/I am a woman

I am white/I am responsible

I am white/I am not responsible

I am white/I am powerful

I am a woman/I hold up half the sky

I am a woman/I am not powerful

I am white/I am a Quaker (almost goes without saying*!)

I am white/I am old

I am old/I am not powerful

I am an old Quaker/I am powerful

*In the USA

Showing Up

[Bumper Stickers on a Somerville Volvo, 2016]

Sometimes Spirit merely whispers, “Do it.” Period. Sometimes reasons are not given. Sometimes we’re supposed to simply be faithful to that Still Small Voice. But sometimes, when it’s pouring rain and you’re wondering if you’re really meant to march in a parade, you wish Spirit could be a wee bit more articulate! (Or as Bill Kreidler is reported to have said: “You want me to do what?”)

Sometimes, however, when we, indeed, Do It/ Show Up, reasons are supplied.

Reason #1: Sunday morning, wrestling with my umbrella, sheathed in long underwear, multiple layers, and L.L.Bean-sturdy rain gear, I was nervously approaching the parade-launching area when a bumper sticker caught my eye: “If it’s not fun why do it?” Oh! Right! This is A PARADE! The Honk! Parade! With marching bands! And wacky costumes! And Somerville and Cambridge police blocking traffic so all of us, activists and street bands, can dance down Massachusetts Avenue! Oh, right: even in the midst of God-in-the-Hard-Places, there is Joy.* (Damp Joy, for sure. Bedraggled Joy. Many bands canceling because the rain threatened their instruments. But those of us who Showed Up did get to dance.)

Needless to say, the crowds lining Mass Av were pretty thin this year. But one spectator, huddled under a store awning, did Show Up despite her age and the terrible weather—and became Reason #2. An environmentalist before most of us, she’s now retired and a widow. To see her face light up as our Mothers Out Front group marched past made my day. Because she saw young women with their families showing up. She saw, embodied, the work she’s done being carried on. She saw Sisterhood in action. With banners and red capes. (We were SuperMoms this year.)

There are some who dismiss Honk! as merely college-educated-white-people-being-(publicly)-weird. And there’s some truth to that. This year, though, just as the parade was almost to Harvard Square, Reason #3 joined us: Harvard University’s striking kitchen workers and their supporters. What a thrill to see that long line of protesters claim Mass Av as theirs!

Thank you, Spirit!

*For me, when grappling with pain and brokenness, the joy comes from knowing that at that moment, there is absolutely nothing else I’d rather be doing than looking deeply into that “Ocean of Darkness.” (And asking myself: What am I asked to do?)

“I Accept the Universe.” (Margaret Fuller)

First time I read this well-known Margaret Fuller quote, my reaction was probably the same as yours: “Duh! Of course you do, Maggy. You don’t have any choice!” But pretty much the same thought has come to me, lately.

First, some context: Transcendentalist, feminist, universally acclaimed to be brilliant, widely-read author and skilled editor, Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1810. (She died, at age 40, with her infant son, when their ship shipwrecked off the coast of Fire island, New York.) Which means, of course, that the Universe she accepted included both slavery, an American evil most (not all) transcendentalists vigorously condemned and fought, and sexism. Northeast-based for much of her short, fully-lived life, the horrors of slavery may very well have been an abstraction for Margaret; not so regarding sexism. That form of oppression she knew first-hand. She was denied an education at Harvard, for example—although later in life she became the first woman allowed to use the prestigious college’s library. (To rectify the abominable education most women of that time received she later conducted “conversations” for/with other women.) In other words, Margaret Fuller’s Universe “ain’t no crystal stair.”*

Neither is mine. So when I say I accept a Universe of climate change denial and racism and Donald Trump and the Kardashian family and unending war and the Zika Virus, I am saying, “Yes. I am mindful of all of it. My acceptance means humility. And embracing complexity. ‘It is what it is.’ All of it. I accept that I am to ask: What am I called to do? And who do I can cheer on from the sidelines as they do what they’re called to do? And to embrace all of it; to let my acceptance be joyful.

And to be grateful as I keep climbing on.

* Langston Hughes’

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor —
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now —
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.