Living Charly

One of the most captivating and disturbing storylines to me is the backslide from some height of achievement. Remember the young adult book Flowers for Algernon, where Charly is a kid with a mental disability who takes some drug and becomes brilliant only to realize that the drug will unavoidably fail and leave him potentially worse off than before?

I fear my life is going to play out that story. I felt like an old soul as a kid. My family drama asked me to step up and take care of myself and my mother's emotions way too soon, and I felt valued and competent when I could do that. I spent the first 20 years of my life feeling confident and superior, together and driven and never second-guessing. Everything was black and white, and I was passionate about denouncing what I saw as wrong, unflinching in judgment about myself and everyone around me. In short, young. And terribly unwise and unkind, but feeling like I knew everything.

And so the last 20 years have been about learning to question myself and the easy first-reaction judgments. I've been reading Thinking Fast and Slow for the last 6 months. I can only read a few pages at a time, because it's an indictment of my youth and my continued first instincts. Our intuition is our System 1 brain in Daniel Kahneman's explanation of how our brains work, our feeling and judging brain that reasons with stories in which there is a hero and a villain (guess which one we all think we are?). That brain has built in shortcuts necessary for us to function minute by minute in a world of overwhelming stimuli that surrounds us. But those shortcuts have built-in errors, and if we don't slow down to question, to breathe, to zoom out of the myopia of our own first-person stories, then we literally don't see things correctly. Our System 2 brain can reason, considering multiple competing factors, but that brain is lazy and defers to System 1 unless pressed into service.

Which is all to say that I am facing a tough conversation with a member of my team on Monday, and I'm scared about how it will go. I have been picturing myself staying calm, centered, and curious. I've been re-reading Brene Brown's Dare to Lead. Clear is kind; unclear is unkind. The cave you fear hides the treasure you seek. So this conversation is a key to growth for me as a manager, as a leader, as an introvert tasked with connecting with a team every day.

And perhaps scariest of all, this is about what I can control and what I can't. I can't make someone like me, or improve performance, for that matter. I can't change the triangle dynamic of a dysfunctional reporting system for this unfortunate woman. I can't not be hurt and angry and feel powerless and disrespected when she cultivates the relationship with my boss's boss, who continually undermines and overlooks me. I can't control how this woman feels about me and my part in this mess. I can't control her interpretation of my actions or the assumptions she's making about me and my motives. I'm less nervous about that part. I can feel myself slowing down, breathing, staying grounded.

It's scarier to think about having this hard conversation and nothing changing. Either having to have it again or never getting to have it again and things going from bad to worse.

But I can only do what I can do. She is doing her best, and so am I. Perhaps we are not a good fit for each other. Maybe I haven't been brave. Maybe she feels ashamed that she can't do more and do better right now. Maybe all of that and more is true.

I'm guessing it comes down to me not valuing what she's contributing and her not feeling that her contribution is valued. There's a whole conversation about assumptions and goals that needs to happen and sounds really hard, and long, when what I am feeling is panic at how much there is to do in so little time.

And then there's the personal questioning of why I don't know more, feel more confident, when I used to live in that certainty and self-righteousness. And while I simultaneously understand that recognizing how much I don't know is wiser and kinder, I hate not trusting myself, not relying on my first instincts to be unerringly right and true and just.

And so middle age is arrived at.

I must remember: more love. My only job is to figure out how to best use people's strengths in the service of the bigger picture, how to support them in bringing their best. Brene Brown asks: "What does support look like?"

I hope I'm about to find out. Together.

Utterance of the Timeless Word (prayer) by Angela Herrera

You bring yourself before the sacred,
before the holy,
before what is ultimate and bigger than your lone life
bigger than your worries
bigger than your money problems
bigger than the fight you had with your sister and your aches and pains
bigger, even, than your whole being, your self who is

part of
and trapped within
and blessed with

a body that does what you want
and doesn’t do what you want
and wants all the wrong things
and wants all the right things... 

You stand at the edge of mystery,
at the edge of the deep,
with the light streaming at you,
and you can’t hide anything—not even from yourself,
when you stand there like that,
and then...what?

Maybe you call your pastor and say,

What is this?
What am I looking at?
What do I do?

And your pastor comes and stands at the edge with you
and looks over.
She can’t hide anything either, she thinks,
not even the fact that she doesn’t know the answer to your question,
and she wonders if you can tell. 

She thinks of all the generations who’ve come there before you
and cast words out ­toward the source of that light,
wanting to name it.
Somehow, she thinks to herself, the names stayed tethered to the aging world and got old
while the light remains timeless and burns without dimming.

Meanwhile,

the armful of worries you brought to the edge of mystery
have fluttered to your feet.
Unobscured by these, you shine back, light emanating unto light.
You, with your broken heart and your seeking,
you are the utterance of the timeless word.
The name of the Holy is pronounced
through your being.

To Sit in the Unknowing (prayer) by Katie Kandarian-Morris

By Katie Kandarian-Morris

O God of many names, the personal and mysterious,
We have come to a quiet time, an interior place,
a place for the deepening of spirit, the enrichment of soul.
We seek to know ourselves by knowing you.

Let us have the courage to sit in the unknowing,
To look for the answers even if they are to sit with our own questions,
To be willing to be authentic with ourselves,
To be ready to bring our face to the world.

Let us be willing to know others by welcoming their genuine features,
By welcoming them into the world,
By appreciating the beauty that comes from seeing wholeness and truth.

Let us sit in that quiet depth.

May it be so. AMEN and Blessed be.

Even This Is Enough (Prayer) - Vanessa Southern

So much undone.
So much to do.
So much to heal
in us and the world.
So much to acquire:
a meal
a healthy body—
a fit one—
a lover
a job
a better job
proof we have and are enough
just around the corner of now.

And up against it the reality of all that falls short and the limits of today.

We honor the limits:
If your body won’t do what it used to, for right now let it be enough.
If your mind won’t stop racing or can’t think of the word, let it be enough.
If you are here utterly alone and in despair, be all that here with us.
If today you cannot sing because your throat hurts or you don’t have the heart for music, be silent.
When the offering plate goes around if you don’t have money to give or the heart to give, let it pass.

The world won’t stop spinning on her axis if you don’t rise to all occasions today.
Love won’t cease to flow in your direction,
your heart won’t stop beating,
all hope won’t be lost.

You are part of the plan for this world’s salvation,
of that I have no doubt.
The world needs its oceans of people striving to be good
to carry us to the shores of hope and wash fear from the beach heads,
and cleanse all wounds so they can heal.
But oceans are big and I am sure there are parts that don’t feel up to the task of the whole some days.
Rest, if you must, then, like the swimmer lying on her back who floats,
or the hawk carried on cushions of air.
Rest in pews made to hold weary lives in space carved out for the doing of nothing much
but being.

Perhaps then you will feel in your bones,
in your weary heart,
the aching, healing sense that
this is enough—
even this.

That we are enough.
You are enough.
Enough.

For these and all the meditations of our hearts unspoken in this hour, I say, “Amen.”

The New Colossus (poem) by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"


November 2, 1883

Anti-racism - Ta-Nehisi Coates

“These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates. Between the World and Me.

Anti-racism - Toni Morrison

You don’t waste your energy fighting the fever; you must only fight the disease. And the disease is not racism. It is greed and the struggle for power.Toni Morrison

New Paths (poem)

Grateful for new paths that emerge
from dark woods

at the edge of my frustration
and the end of what I know to do to help you,

we take the first steps --
me ahead --

you, knowing less,
behind.

I hold your hand,
still small,

so steady
for one so easily overwhelmed.

-- for Beckett

Prayer for Family Appreciation

May you never lose the excitement of storytelling to a mom listening with love glistening in her eyes.

May this mom never lose the love and pride of listening to your joy in storytelling.

May the lessons we learn playing board games prepare us for a life of cooperation and shared goals.

May I let in love that surrounds me like sunshine.

May the order we create with hard work clear our minds and our lives for the rich messiness of loving.

Civic Plaza Fountain

I tell you not to run
but your joy streaks ahead

to the water
surging from concrete

to meet you
hands up

laughter cresting
between the two of you

in the summer sun
spring breeze

singing this cool May morning
into family legend.

The Way It Is (poem) by Lynn Ungar

One morning you might wake up
to realize that the knot in your stomach
had loosened itself and slipped away,
and that the pit of unfulfilled longing in your heart
had gradually, and without your really noticing,
been filled in—patched like a pothole, not quite
the same as it was, but good enough.


And in that moment it might occur to you
that your life, though not the way
you planned it, and maybe not even entirely
the way you wanted it, is nonetheless—
persistently, abundantly, miraculously—
exactly the way it is.

The Camels Speak (poem) by Lynn Ungar

Of course they never consulted us.
They were wise men, kings, star-readers,
and we merely transportation.
They simply loaded us with gifts
and turned us toward the star.
I ask you, what would a king know
of choosing presents for a child?
Had they ever even seen a baby
born to such simple folks,
so naked of pretension,
so open to the wind?
What would such a child care
for perfumes and gold? Far better
to have asked one born in the desert,
tested by wind and sand. We saw
what he would need: the gift
of perseverance, of continuing on the hard way,
making do with what there is,
living on what you have inside.
The gift of holding up under a burden,
of lifting another with grace, of kneeling
To accept the weight of what you must bear.
Our footsteps could have rocked him
with the rhythm of the road,
shown him comfort in a harsh land,
the dignity of continually moving forward.
But the wise men were not
wise enough to ask. They simply
left their trinkets and admired
the rustic view. Before you knew it
we were turned again toward home,
carrying men only half-willing
to be amazed. But never mind.
We saw the baby, felt him reach
for the bright tassels of our gear.
We desert amblers have our ways
of seeing what you chatterers must miss.
That child at heart knows something
about following a star. Our gifts are given.
Have no doubt. His life will bear
the print of who we are.

Ready - Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

"So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls wrapped in their cloaks upon their shoulders." —Exodus 12:34

You’ll need to travel light.
Take what you can carry: a book, a poem,
a battered tin cup, your child strapped
to your chest, clutching your necklace
in one hot possessive fist.

So the dough isn’t ready. So your heart
isn't ready. You haven’t said goodbye
to the places where you hid as a child,
to the friends who aren’t interested in the journey,
to the graves you’ve tended.

But if you wait until you feel fully ready
you may never take the leap at all
and Infinity is calling you forth
out of this birth canal
and into the future’s wide expanse.

Learn to improvise flat cakes without yeast.
Learn to read new alphabets.
Wear God like a cloak
and stride forth with confidence.
You won’t know where you’re going

but you have the words of our sages,
the songs of our mothers, the inspiration
wrapped in your kneading bowl. Trust
that what you carry will sustain you
and take the first step out the door.

The Fountain - Denise Levertov

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water
to solace the dryness at our hearts.
I have seen

 
the fountain springing out of the rock wall
and you drinking there. And I too
before your eyes

 
found footholds and climbed
to drink the cool water.
The woman of that place, shading her eyes,

frowned as she watched-but not because
she grudged the water,
only because she was waiting

to see we drank our fill and were
refreshed.
Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.

The fountain is there among it’s scalloped
grey and green stones,
it is still there and always there

with it’s quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,

 
up and out through the rock.

Famous - Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,   
which knew it would inherit the earth   
before anybody said so.   

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds   
watching him from the birdhouse.   

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.   

The idea you carry close to your bosom   
is famous to your bosom.   

The boot is famous to the earth,   
more famous than the dress shoe,   
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it   
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.   

I want to be famous to shuffling men   
who smile while crossing streets,   
sticky children in grocery lines,   
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,   
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,   
but because it never forgot what it could do.

From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye. Copyright © 1995. 

Your Laughter - a poem for Dawn

I adapted this poem for my friend, Dawn Lunt, who passed in January 2017. The original Pablo Neruda Poem follows.

Your Laughter

For Dawn, after a poem by Pablo Neruda

January 30, 2017

You have taken a bit of light with you into the dark

Night of the universe

A bit of chocolate from our days

Salt from our stews –

Not bread, not air, for our lives go on –

Full and brisk and elemental

As seasons’ change.

But your laughter

Its echo

Its warmth

Lingers like candle smoke

The rose’s prick

The water’s chill

The salt in the caramel’s sweet –

The silver of your love

Ringing against our bell chamber hearts

That fill and empty again

As each wave of memory fills us with joy

And recedes into loss.

We do not struggle to honor you

To feel saturated with the light in which you lived your days

To see through your love-colored glasses

The changing earth

Our daily struggles

Our small triumphs of growth

And to feel again the gravity of your goodness

Your belief in the inevitability of our betterment

The impossible strength of your twisted hands.

And when we hear again your laugh

See the twinkle of your baby blues

In the brash vastness of the sky

The tap-dance of dew on the flagrant softness of petals

Your love enters again

Rising to seek the best in us

To open the doors of our belief in ourselves and the good we can do

To gouge beauty into us as water into canyons

Deep

Where only love can go.

Dawn, in this hour

When we listen for you

Your laughter opens

Us to life –

Its dark challenges

And extravagant blessings.

And if suddenly

You feel us lose hope,

Laugh, because your laughter

Will be for our hands

A fresh task

To weave love

Out of our life’s work

In all the ways we work –

Working together

And working to gather

The joy in each moment

As you did.

As you managed to do,

Right to the end.

Next to the volcanoes at sunrise,

Your laughter must raise

Its bubbly cascade,

And in the evening, Dawn,

We want your laughter like

The moment we were waiting for,

The quiet confirmation of the trick to your

Endless energy to add your light to the world,

Which echoes with the light of your love.

Laugh at the night,

At the day, at the moon,

Laugh at the congested

Streets of this city,

Laugh at these clumsy

Friends who love you,

But when we close our eyes

And open them,

When our steps go,

When our steps return,

Deny us chocolate,

Deny us salt,

Light, spring,

But never your laughter

For in that sound echoing in our ears

You will never die.

Your Laughter, Pablo Neruda

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die. 

Albuquerque Poems

On the final day of the Creative Placemaking Summit West, I learned of a website of poems written about places in Albuquerque: Poetic Routes.

So beautiful, and now I want to write poems about every corner of Albuquerque I love.

The next poem I need to write is the family history of Supper Rock, where my mother and father still congregate for mealtimes at different tables.

There is a family history (my grandfather's memory?) of piling into a horse-drawn wagon after the Baptist church service at Broadway and Central to trek up to Supper Rock for an evening (afternoon?) meal. It took the rest of the day. Such fun, such adventure. A whole day that reduces 50 years later to a 20-minute car ride and 15 minute walk around the park ringing what's left of Supper Rock like a pocket watch chain.

Map of Albuquerque

East is always up,
the Sandia mountains compassing the gravity of home.

Time sediments west from earliest memories
mining for Copper in the foothills

walking in gridded geometries toward Moon
a Collet Park childhood

a city bus ride's distance up Lomas
from Grant's middle school tomb.

Life didn't break open past Wyoming
until the University cranked open its creaky arms

to my college curiosity
where place and poetry and history and philosophy

took root in me
with mentorships that grew episodic

like cottonwoods
close to a river that I only discovered years later

coming home
to myself and a family that knew

the richness here
was the only food for DNA

shaped like lava
bedrock

sanded over with dust
decorated by ancient hands

whispering in winds
tickling volcanic escarpments

that laugh the stories
of our oldest neighbors.

Love began again
with the choice to start  a new family

in the caldera of an extinct fire
in the valley of friends

ringing my days and years
with reminders of who I have been

who I have said I wanted to become
in this place that leaves me no place

to
hide.

(Photo: Roberto E. Rosales)

litany - Mahogany L. Browne

litany

Mahogany L. Browne

I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holding me —Nina Simone

today i am a black woman in america
& i am singing a melody ridden lullaby
it sounds like:
              the gentrification of a brooklyn stoop
              the rent raised three times my wages
              the bodega and laundromat burned down on the corner
              the people on the corner
                          each lock & key their chromosomes
                          a note of ash & inquiry on their tongues

today i am a black woman in a hopeless state
i will apply for financial aid and food stamps
          with the same mouth i spit poems from
i will ask the angels of a creative god to lessen
          the blows
& i will beg for forgiveness when i curse
          the rising sun

today, i am a black woman in a body of coal
i am always burning and no one knows my name
i am a nameless fury, i am a blues scratched from
the throat of ms. nina—i am always angry
i am always a bumble hive of hello
i love like this too loudly, my neighbors
think i am an unforgiving bitter
            sometimes, i think my neighbors are right
            most times i think my neighbors are nosey

today, i am a cold country, a storm
brewing, a heat wave of a woman wearing
red pumps to the funeral of my ex-lover’s

today, i am a woman, a brown and black &
brew woman dreaming of freedom

today, i am a mother, & my country is burning
           and i forget how to flee
from such a flamboyant backdraft
                       —i’m too in awe of how beautiful i look
            on fire

Brown Girl Has Walked Into the Wild, Palms Open - Barbara Jane Reyes

Brown Girl Has Walked Into the Wild, Palms Open

Barbara Jane Reyes

  See how she lists. The body is bent as light, as wind will it.
And so you must tread light. Mind the rocks under foot. You must tread slow.
There has been drought; see where water has long ago troughed, has carved her.
  See how she branches, twisting, her many hands reaching.
Her roots also reach, sweetened from reaching. When fire arrives, she toughens.
She will slough away the thick. She will be slick, and dark beneath the rough.
She will mimic the fire her bones remember. Know her bones glisten.
  See how she rests. The body will fall, as time wills it.
See how it hollows, how her pieces return to earth.
 And from her thick trunk, mushrooms cluster—
   Her belly a nest of moss and poison.
When broken open, see what of her mother she has kept,
   what of her father, what of the stars.