Sometimes life gets away from me. Like the winter sun, the central things I care about seem too distant to keep my focus. I start to pay attention to the cold, the ice, the blocked flow of my life. And yet, through the trees, the sun returns, to remind me of all the things that form the center of my life.
sunshine on cold days
casting long shadows on the snow
spilling star shine
Ranger and Monty © Kathryn Forbes 2013
I’m not the first to ever write about finding friends. And I won’t be the last. I looked at Goodreads quotes about friends, and they number 1071. I felt like the most noble of researchers just continuing to read past page one. Yes, folks, in your honor I actually read page 2! Whew, that’s 60 quotes. Here’s one gem from page 2:
I don’t suppose you have many friends. Neither do I. I don’t trust people who say they have a lot of friends. It’s a sure sign that they don’t really know anyone. — Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Definition of reverie: n. rev•er•ie (ˈrɛv ə ri)
1. a state of meditation or fanciful musing: lost in reverie;
2. a daydream;
3. a fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea.
— The Free Dictionary
Mary Cassatt painted a woman contemplating a flower and titled the painting Reverie. I stared at that painting, reproduced in an Impressionist art book, struck by the name, a word unheard for years. I looked around the crowded Starbucks, and everyone was looking at a screen or talking intently to others. I wondered when was the last time I experienced a reverie. Do they exist anymore? Are they like the fabled unicorn, only appearing to young children?
round, red zinnia
smells sweetly of rainy days
tastes of summer
I remember reveries from childhood. One time I toasted a hotdog on a bonfire. It was burnt on the outside and cold on the inside. Afterwards, I felt sleepy, contemplating the fire. I had a twilight dream that I was the hotdog, burnt on the side facing the fire and freezing on the side away.
The church is near but the road is all ice;
the tavern is far but I’ll walk very carefully.
Russian Proverb
Years ago, I was working for a minimal salary. My net pay barely covered the expenses of professional clothing, commuting, food and rent. I worked very hard the first year, trying to be the perfect employee, working quickly, seeking extra work, hoping I would earn a big raise. I slid sideways into debt when my car was totaled in an accident and my cat needed expensive medicine.
Picture used by kind permission of Ines Williamson
In the yellow light of a new night, the cobblestones echo my thoughts back to me. “Why are you here?” Here is where I started, in a small apartment past that iron gate. The first sunshine I ever remember seeing flooded into my tiny room there on the third floor.
My friends and I played stickball and tackle-tommy in the Magic Between. That special time between school and dinner is what I miss most, that magical time when parents were busy and kids could play. I remember the Between as one big blur, like an endless summer day: my homerun, Jack’s skinned knee and when Bats broke his arm swinging over the fence instead of walking through like everyone else.
I rang in the New Year with my folks in their new place across town, but this golden gateway is where the little-me, my memory, still lives. I remember when Stefan’s snake escaped, and Mrs. Nolan came screaming down her stairs, after finding it curled under her stove.
Is home on these cobbles? Or in the window glass I looked through on a night like tonight? My sister and I wished on a star. Wishes are secret, but mine was to fly in an airplane one day, to be inside one leaving a contrail wide enough to be seen all over the city, knowing people were looking up at the roar I made. Then my sister and I realized the only star in the sky was moving, not a star at all, probably an airplane. Do wishes made on planes come true? This one did.
I came back to my hometown on an airplane, home to see my folks, so happy in their new apartment, all their things reduced and rearranged. My sister is busy with her three kids and their teenage angst, but she came to see me and our parents. I don’t think she really saw me. We barely spoke. I couldn’t think what to say to her. I wonder what her wish was, all those years ago. I know better than to ask. Now a new airplane will take me home to Boston, my other home.
home is in my heart
not here on this cobbled street
but I hear its echo
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Inspired by the first Līgo Haībun Challenge of 2014, part of a picture prompt from Ese at Ese’s Voice.
Northern lights result from solar emissions traveling across space and colliding with earth, sparking incredible light displays. They can happen any time or any place on earth, but the lights, uncoiling like chinese dragons, are only visible in the darkest night sky. Perhaps we are always surrounded by these subtle displays of arching color, but our eyes cannot see them in the greater brightness of the sun and moon.
There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
— Erma Bombeck
When I was a child, I hated suspense, and all my energy went into solving mysteries quickly. I generally figured out who did what where in the game Clue, where the flag was in Stratego and what I was getting for Christmas. Continue reading
Used with permission of Managua Gunn
I dream here in this place of ancient magic, listening to the humming telephone wires. Oil wells beat like a thousand hearts. My roots stretch beneath the hill, into the frozen past. The dry desert sands cannot warm the hidden place where the Garden of Eden still flourishes, hidden from man these many thousand years. I was blown to this hill as a seed, more than 400 years ago.
mother lost in time
father wind threw me from her
alone in this place
A child fell, cutting his knee on a pottery shard. His blood watered the sand, pushing me into the soil. In his brief pain, he called to Enki, the Water God, who granted a year of beating rain. Was I blessed by Enki to outlive my kin or cursed to burn in the sun, gaped at by tourists?
Shajarat-al-Hayat
symbol of forgotten time
outliving all loves
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Inspired by the weekly Haībun challenge.
References:
http://www.worldtoptop.com/mysterious-tree-of-life-bahrain/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Life,_Bahrain
http://www.bahrain.com/en/vp/things-to-do/top-ten-sights/Pages/Tree-of-Life.aspx#.UqvbGyihDzI
Never was anything great achieved without danger.
– Niccolo Machiavelli
Are you in danger? We all face dangers from war, terrorism, natural disaster or accidents. Children are under another’s control, which has its own dangers, unfortunately. As adults, in a peaceful society, the worst daily danger we face is from ourselves. Our own bad choices can lead us down unsafe or self-destructive paths. Smoking eventually kills. Drunk driving kills. Addiction or obsession can hurt everyone around us. Eating too much can cause health problems. Eating too little can kill, too.
Sometimes, the bad choices are not obvious dangers. In college, I worked on a literary magazine. I submitted a light-hearted piece for publication to the editor, and she asked to meet with me. My piece was not what she wanted to publish next to pieces on female circumcision, the plight of refugees from Africa and relationship angst. Subjects that matter.
“Write what you know.” The editor said to me very seriously, her asymmetrical hair shielding her eyes from view. “You have to write about your own life.”
I had already been published more than once in a variety of places including that same literary magazine. At first, I was angry at her for trying to tell me what to write. The more I thought about her advice to me, the more I became afraid. Afraid that without raw, wounding truth, a story was without value. Afraid that if a story did not ring with the voice of the oppressed, it was a story that did not matter.
The habit of silence was too strong for me to spill my guts for an editor I barely knew. My pain was not for sale. However, the fear took root, sending up thorn bushes and thistles. I stopped writing any kind of poetry or fiction. A line from Strictly Ballroom, a movie written by Baz Luhrmann, resonated with me:
“Una vida con miedo es como la vida medias.”
Or, “A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.”
I turned to oil painting. I painted portraits and abstracts successfully, selling paintings and exhibiting in a show, but I hated losing possession of paintings. I still ache for a couple of them. Meanwhile, I channeled my writing urge into my profession. Occasionally, I would write a poem, but my words seemed without value.
poems told my secrets
portrayal of misery
betrayal of me
Then, my children were born, and my light-hearted stories started to flow again. Incidents from my life informed my writing, giving my stories bones and heart.
Now that I have started to write for myself again, I realize living by someone else’s measure is half-living. As my stories have started to flow, so too has my joy found voice, my magic increased. I have embraced poetry, writing of nature, beauty and peace. Dwelling on my pain might be therapeutic, as it is for others, but it might also be self-destructive and destabilizing. I choose not to dwell in the dark places.
I’m still trying to pull those thistles, but the thorns are stuck deep. Every day, I face my fears, the fear of mediocrity, the fear of irrelevance. Will I hear advice from others to be more revelatory, to write more about pain and less about joy? Will I hear that my voice is singing the wrong song? Am I in danger of stopping writing again? Not this time.
resolution strong
writing flows like a river
let your voice sing, too
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Inspired by the weekly Haībun prompt.
Note: Those are a few of my remaining pieces of art. My best paintings, I no longer have, and I do not have good photographs of them either. Mostly, the nature photographs on my website are the art I have done since I started to write for myself again.
Too often, I look only for myself in reflections. I let the eyes of my friends and family tell me who I am. I check my hair or clothes in mirrors, critically noting imperfections, thinking about who I am on the surface.
Then a magical moment happened, standing on a bridge, water flowing musically below. My down coat was tightly zipped against the chill. Leaf mold scent mingled with the fragrance of coming snow. I looked down, and I didn’t see myself at all. Instead I saw the whole world reflected there, sky, clouds, trees, birds. My own self-critical thoughts stilled, and I heard the trees give windy sighs, their summer burdens discarded, in the embrace of winter dreams.
burdens lift away
self lost in the larger world
beauty calms, renews
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Inspired by the weekly Haībun challenge, with the prompt of water.
Used Courtesy of ArtifactsandFictions
Dear Joanie,
I arrived safely, and my company has given me a nice hotel. It’s fall here, too. I should be home soon. Take care of mommy.
Love, Daddy
father gone too long
black marks on paper not enough
leaves falling slowly
Dear Joanie,
I hiked high up a mountain Saturday in the morning mist. The mist receded before me, always out of reach. My contract has been extended, and I will be here at least another month. I miss you. Will you please write me more often?
Hugs, Daddy
mother sad and still
sitting by the cold window
white snow blowing past
Dear Joanie,
My heart is with you, but I have to stay a little longer. The temple bells wake me in the morning. I’m working long hours to return home to you. Tell your mother I love her.
Fondly, Daddy
cold empty playground
wind singing and swaying swings
dad played soccer here
Dear Joanie,
I so appreciated the photographs and book you and Mommy sent for my birthday. It lightened by heart, just as the sun is warming the ground and calling forth buds. My project is finally finished! I will be home in a week after a few more meetings!
Love, Daddy
sunshine glints brightly
ocean waves beat against stone
Japan behind mists
Dear Joanie,
Thanks for your joyful letter. I’m so happy spring has arrived. Here, the trees have leafed up, too, and the grasslands wave in the mountain breezes. The air is fresh, and smells of flowers. The final meetings took longer than I thought. One more week, and I will be home. Here is a picture of the view from my window. I think of you every day.
I love you and miss you, Daddy
heron rose from reeds
salt marsh seagulls call hello
sun sets on absence
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Prepared from art by Suzanne and inspired by the Haībun weekly prompt. Also written for the DPChallenge, which I have never tried before. Although I write haiku, I have never paired them with a letter-writing prose style, so this was a departure for me. I’m writing all five haiku in one go because: Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Blogging, oh, my!
When the summer sun shines, blinding me with its full radiance, the pleasure is painfully exquisite. If I bask too long, my sunburn is a long, slow torment, my body retaining the summer’s heat for days. Yet that same hot summer sun provides the energy for all the food we eat, makes the world a vibrant beautiful place.
hot reckless summer
sun provides food for tree leaves
blessed saving shade
In the autumn, the sun’s strength has diminished, and its power to blind and burn has faded with the earth’s turning. The leaves mourn with me, turning all the colors of the earth from the loss of that unrelenting brilliance. A cool morning is made a delight, sitting by the lake, soaking up the remaining heat, with no fear of sunburn.
a bench in the sun
light glints on still lake water
sun warms cold morning
Fall warmth has to last through the dark days of winter, when the sky can turn gray with snow for days in a row. The weak winter sun cannot burn through snow clouds, and instead sends a diffuse light leaking through. After the clouds break, the fresh fallen snow can magnify the sunlight into a thousand knives, piercing my eyes with a painful overload. Crossing a field after a snowfall, the light forces my eyes to thin slits, tears seeping and freezing on my cheeks.
boots sink in new snow
icy wind curls under scarf
eyes shut from white fire
Spring finds moderation again, without the piercing light reflected by the winter white, without the intense burning of the summer sun. The whole world bursts forth in bloom, bulbs shooting forth their starbursts of color and myself shedding clothing layers. Spring sunlight is an invitation, a benediction, a renewing from the universe.
starshine gently falls
magic balm to the cold earth
life springs up dancing
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This post was inspired by the Ligo Haībun challenge by Ese, who offered a Mexican proverb: It is not enough to know how to ride – you must also know how to fall. This proverb reminded me of autumn, the leaves falling after a summer of riding the sunshine; life in its eternal circle; the earth circling; the sun in its seasons.
Friendly Fairy Tales 