My mom’s parents lived in a big old farmhouse just outside Sturgis, MI when I was little. We visited a few times a year, and always spent a week there together in the summer. It was a magical place, and my longing for it returns sometimes unbidden. My grandpa hung a wooden swing with chain links from one of the pine trees. That swing is burned into my memory, the thought of it filling me with a powerful love for the things and the people I’ve lost.
This place reminds me of you
Of how, as a little girl,
I would wander down the hill, counting pine cones,
Sit on the tree swing and look at the pool.
The tree was tall and fragrant
And it shaded me from any worry
Because I was safe there, with you,
In summer, when days are lazy
And there is nothing to do
But jump from rock to rock along the driveway
Pretending each one is a faraway planet
Or wander under the fruit trees behind the brick wall
Or among your gardens as the sun sank low.
I wonder now if you can see me
If you’d be proud of me
If you’d smile, watching me swing high into the sky
As an empath, I feel all the things. It can be overwhelming. I don’t know how not to feel things, even if they start to consume me. Making things helps. Being creative helps. Writing helps. This poem is one of the outpourings of the healing process.
As an empath, I feel all the things. It can be overwhelming. I don’t know how not to feel things, even if they start to consume me. Making things helps. Being creative helps. Writing helps. This poem is one of the outpourings of the healing process.
As an empath, I feel all the things. It can be overwhelming. I don’t know how not to feel things, even if they start to consume me. Making things helps. Being creative helps. Writing helps. This poem is one of the outpourings of the healing process.
As an empath, I feel all the things. It can be overwhelming. I don’t know how not to feel things, even if they start to consume me. Making things helps. Being creative helps. Writing helps. This poem is one of the outpourings of the healing process.
Today I have a bonus post. It’s summer and my nostalgia is running high, even though (because) the world still feels upside down. It has been a tough few months for me personally, and a heartbreaking week for many of us. I am trying to cultivate the seeds I’ve been given to bring about something that I can call beautiful.
Today I was chopping a watermelon
And unlike last time
I was using a knife that made the fruit
Feel like soft butter
And slid through the rind with a satisfying snap.
The sweet smell of the juice
Running over the board
Reminded me how nervous I had been
Using the wrong tool for the job
Hoping to chunk the melon on that plastic table
without the blade slipping into the flesh of my palm.
I didn’t want him to have to find a bandage for me again
Like the time I sliced open my finger
And he called to me from the bathroom door
That he had found the Band-aids.
Today I trimmed the rind from the red flesh,
Thinking about my mom and how she
Chopped everything with a furious speed when I was kid
And in my amazement I asked how she did it.
It takes a lot of practice she told me.
Today I nearly laughed, thinking how I still haven’t mastered it
As I cut slowly so the knife didn’t slip.
I don’t need another injury
To add to the long list of wounds I’m healing.
I took the inedible greenery to the composter
And as I dumped the pieces into the loamy-smelling bin
I wondered how long it would be before the rot
Turned them into fresh earth, rich for growing.
I peeled a stray sliver of fruit from the tray
Placed it on my tongue, savoring its perfectly sweet sharpness
I have had the great benefit of having many spiritual mentors over the course of my life. I grew up surrounded by people that loved me and had my best interests at heart. But I also grew up in a denomination that was fracturing over a number of issues. The biggest question that impacted me personally was the role women had to play in spiritual life. My congregation was affirming of women and their gifts. We valued women and their leadership. We ordained women and placed them where they were being called to serve. Unfortunately, none of those choices could fully protect women in our church from sometimes feeling the pain of a denominational crisis that centered on them.
When she is broken
And she doesn’t have words
She will creep down the dim hallway
To the place where she doesn’t need them.
And there on the door
She will read the rules:
“Menstruating women are not permitted to use the prayer room.”
The Quick and the Dead 