(pic source unknown)
In Praise of My Bed
by Meredith Holmes
At last I can be with you
The grinding hours
since I left your side!
The labor of being fully human,
working my opposable thumb,
talking, and walking upright.
Now I have unclasped
unzipped, stepped out of.
Husked, soft, a be-er only,
I do nothing, but point
my bare feet into your
clean smoothness
feel your quiet strength
the whole length of my body.
I close my eyes, hear myself
moan, so grateful to be held this way.
I’m not even halfway through the March issue but I found myself scribbling notes on college lined paper at the kitchen table.
I smiled while doing it.
I miss writing longhand. I like to write in cursive with a really great pen.
Adele is on the cover, looking gorgeous, per usual. (Although, I wish they hadn’t photo shopped her body on the cover. We know she doesn’t have a 20 inch waist, people. And it’s ok. )
She is, as you would guess, a great interview, full of vim and vigor. The interview validates why she is so astonishing. She’s brutally honest and claims she really has no idea where all of these beautiful songs come from. They just pour out of her. That type of honesty is inspiring and beautiful. She doesn’t talk about “the craft” or other such bullshit nonsense. She just is. Also, how cool is the fact that Rolling in the Deep came from a gang phrase used in UK? “Roll deep” basically means having someone have your back so you are never on your own if you get into trouble. She thought it was beautiful and changed it to “Rolling in the Deep.” Genius.
“Adele has one of the great dirty mouths of her generation. Get her going on a subject that raises her ire, and the obscenities fly like sparks off a welder.” –Jonathan Van Meter, Adele interview, VOGUE
“…Like sparks off a welder.” So good.
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The piece by Cheryl Strayed about her trek on the Pacific Crest Trail has me wanting to rush out and get her memoir: “Wild: From Lost to Found on The Pacific Crest Trail.”
I’m not a climber or really interested in it. It is her writing and her reasons for doing it that intrigued me. She had never backpacked before going on the trip. NEVER. That’s like me deciding to freaking hike the PCT (which, incidentally, took her 3 months and is 1,100 miles. WTF!) And very clearly, she finds herself needing to do it.
My mom died when I was twenty-two and she was forty-five. She died of cancer, but it wasn’t the way I thought a death by cancer would be—long and drawn out and cinematic. Instead, my mother was dead seven weeks to the day after her diagnosis. Her death was simple and ugly and it didn’t feel even remotely like a movie. It felt to me that I had died with her, and in some ways, I did. The vision I’d previously had of my life died. I don’t have a relationship with my biological father and though I had a step-father, he couldn’t continue being a step-father to me in the face of his own loss. And so I wandered forth, suddenly an orphan. – Cheryl Strayed
I understand why she did it with no experience. Why not? After a blow like that, you feel invincible. Not the invincible I felt after giving birth to H&F. That was empowering and invigorating. I felt so STRONG!
My Dad’s death left me numb. Nothing could hurt me.
When talking about her decision to make the trek, Cheryl Strayed says “Nothing bad could happen to me, I thought. The worst thing already had.”
This resonated so deeply with me, that I actually stopped reading for a second to look up, close my mouth and let that thought marinate.
I felt and feel the same way about my dad’s death. It was worse than breast cancer, depression, lupus…His death rocked me to my core. There is definitely a sense of “Nothing scares me now.”
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And a final thought on the issue: Florence Broadhurst for Kate Spade? Fan-freaking-tastic. A beautiful marriage!
Reading the paper this morning, there was an article about marrow donation and this quote jumped out and has been dancing around my head.
“I’m going to have to develop a little more patience with myself and really just enjoy being alive and not worrying about having to spend every moment of every day trying to achieve something.”
So, I will keep that with me today, as well as this video, which I imagine is what the inner workings of my brain look like.
I really loved what Ann Druyan said when talking about her husband, Carl Sagan.
“When my husband died, because he was so famous & known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me — it still sometimes happens — & ask me if Carl changed at the end & converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again.
Carl faced his death with unflagging courage & never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief & precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive & we were together was miraculous — not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous & so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space & the immensity of time… That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me & it’s much more meaningful…
The way he treated me & the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other & our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.”
It resonates with me so completely and is how Peter and I feel about each other. We were beneficiaries of chance. A wonderful and kind bit of chance.
Yet another reminder to drink up this rich life and be grateful for the really amazing things in your life. Big and small.
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