At the tender age of 10, I wrote my first poem. It was a truly terrible one. It started off with these words, “I heard the coyotes howling one night. Howling to the moon so bright.” It went on to say something like the coyotes howled like this at the moon before any white men stepped foot in America, and I think it also said something about coyotes howling at the same star that the wise men followed. I am not sure how the star and the moon connect. Like I said, it was a terrible poem.
However, ten-year-olds can be excused for writing terrible poems. I remember I wrote it after waking up one night and hearing the coyotes howling. Hearing the eerie, lonesome sound, I lay there, moved by a longing I could not express. Why were they howling? What did they know that I didn’t know? Why did it move me so much? I needed to express what I felt and so I tried to write a poem about it. I think now what I wanted to say in the poem was that the coyotes knew of things that we didn’t, that they had howled long before I was born, and how it felt like they were steeped in some kind of ancient knowledge that I had no idea of.
As a child and also as an adult, I struggled with the way that beauty hurt. Why did a beautiful sunset dying over greening wheat fields pain me so much? How could a few words from a poem stir me with longing for something I never knew? Why did the stark beauty of November prairie grass framed by barren Osage orange trees haunt me with its images?
Ten years ago, when I was putting together my first book of poetry, Echoes of Eternity, Beulah Nisly kindly let me use her beautiful photos for the book. Beulah is my mom’s spontaneous yet thoughtful cousin, and a lover of beauty. Beulah loves to capture this beauty with her camera, and I first met her when we got together to discuss the photos for the book. After reading through my poetry, she suggested that I read C.S. Lewis’s “The Weight of Glory” and even printed it off for me to read.
I did and my heart leaped for joy when I read this:
The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. (C.S Lewis, the Weight of Glory)
That, I thought, “the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited”, that was why it hurts so much. It hurts because I can’t get enough of it. I can’t hang on to it. It is only the echo, the scent, the news that reminds me of that “something else” that waits for me.
That is why a road curving into the distance beckons my heart, why the moon rising on an October night over cornfields hurts me, why being alone on a misty mountaintop makes me cry, why rain falling on a gray day brings gives me a deep, delicious sadness, why the sound of the freight train mourning through the night makes me shiver with sadness and joy at the same time, why the words, “The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms,” resonates deep within me, why I listen to sad songs like Fernando Ortego’s “Now That You’re Gone,” or lonesome Chinese flute music or Gregorian chants of the Psalms or ancient Jewish songs. It reminds me of a place that I am going to, somewhere that I have not visited and yet somehow I carry the memory of that place imprinted on my soul.
Because of this, I was eager to read Bittersweet by Susan Cain after waiting for the book for months. Cain put even more words and clarity to what C.S Lewis began to explain for me. She talks about melancholy, longing or the “bittersweet,” how it calls to us, and how the desire it stirs up in us is a desire for the divine, even though she insists she is agnostic. She talks of embracing pain and an imperfect world, in order to find healing. She also discusses how sadness or pain triggers compassion and empathy for others, and how closeness to death makes us realize what truly important.
Cain writes, “We think we long for eternal life, but maybe what we’re really longing for is perfect and unconditional love; a world in which lions actually do lay down with lambs; a world free of famines and floods, concentration camps and Gulag archipelagos; a world in which we grow up to love others in the same helplessly exuberant way we once loved our parents; a world in which we’re forever adored like a precious baby…” This was in response to RAADfest, an event focused on anti-aging, radical life extension and physical mortality in which people who are determined not to die gather together for a seminar on advice on how not to do so, or that is the vibe I got from what Cain said. These people believe that if death were eradicated, then the inner selfish desires that drive us to survival would fade away as well, and humanity could be united. Cain writes, “And I believe exactly the opposite: that sorrow, longing, and maybe even mortality itself are a unifying force, a pathway to love; and that our greatest and most difficult task is learning how to walk it.” Cain argues that the fullest life is experienced when we embrace both pain and joy, death and life at the same time.
Cain also talks how we sometimes carry the pain of the generations past and how studies show pain from our ancestors can affect the way we are wired. I have often wondered about this, if some of the heaviness I feel at times is my own or from others. She talks about her own loss, how her relationship with her mother disintegrated as a teenager, and talks about dealing with loss and grief.
There is more, much more, to the book and I recommend it. I wanted to read it slowly and savor it, but I had it on a 2 week loan from Libby at a time when work and study and life clashed, and I had to read it in gulps. I don’t agree with everything Cain says, but it helped me become more aware of myself and that longing, and realize that much of my own poetry, especially anything printed in the “Heartsong” section of my book Dustbeams comes from that innate longing, that melancholy bittersweetness that Cain talks about. And perhaps why I even write poetry in the first place.
“All the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor…” of that that source of the longing that we feel (C.S Lewis, the Weight of Glory), the glory that Cain simply called the divine, and I call God. The writers of the Psalms felt it too in their laments of pain and songs of joy, and John when he penned the words, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
William Herbert Carruth wrote a poem called “Each in His Own Tongue”, which I discovered years ago and memorized a part. Some of the verses may be a bit controversial, but here are the ones I consider the best, and that rightly say what I am trying to say.
A haze on the far horizon, The infinite, tender sky, The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, And the wild geese sailing high; And all over upland and lowland The charm of the goldenrod — Some of us call it Autumn, And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea beach, When the moon is new and thin, Into our hearts high yearnings Come welling and surging in; Come from the mystic ocean, Whose rim no foot has trod — Some of us call it Longing, And others call it God.
I think that the Preacher says it best of all,
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11
This is the lazy man’s way to blog: recycling homework. While I am not allowed to recycle homework for my classes, I can do it on my blog. Below is a Creative Writing story I wrote this week. Currently, I don’t have time to blog much more than this. This story is fiction. Any names you might recognize are simply because I like to draw from my own experiences and the people around me. It makes the story “me.” And no, my grandma did not suffer from Alzheimers (just to be totally clear).
I am never quite sure if I like Grandma or not.
When I was a little girl, I thought all grandmas were like this. Until one day I am rolling out cookie dough at Regina’s house, and Regina’s grandmother walks into the kitchen. Once she leaves, I ask Regina who she is.
“Why it’s my grandma!” says Regina.
“You mean she can talk? How can she talk if she is a grandma?”
Regina stares at me in incredulous surprise. “What do you mean? Of course she can talk!”
I don’t know what to say. I just say “oh” in a small voice and tuck it away to think about.
That was a few months ago. Now I know better.
My grandma Emmy lives in a little house with Grandpa John right beside our house. Sometimes she comes over to our house when Grandpa John has to go to town to do errands. Some days I am glad when she comes. On those days, we play doll together. Grandma Emmy dresses up her doll in the nicest clothes, and she is the best at making pretend baby noises. We pretend to be riding in an airplane with our dollies, and even though Grandma Emmy can’t talk, she makes the best airplane noises.
But most days Grandma Emmy isn’t like that. On those days, she walks around the house like she is looking for something. When I was smaller, I would ask her what she was looking for. But now I don’t.
The worse is when she cries. She sits down on the floor beside the toybox and holds her doll tight and cries. I am always scared when that happens, because her crying doesn’t sound like a baby. It is thin and wailing like the lost kitten we found under the pipes in the back of the barn. And I don’t like watching big people cry.
Keith and Amy can remember when Grandma wasn’t like this. When she was like a normal person. They tell stories of the delicious cookies that she made and how she would let them lick out the bowl after she had made cake. She would play checkers with them on winter evenings, and let them make snow candy by pouring maple syrup on snow and letting it harden. She would read books to them, using different voices for different characters, in ways that made the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.
But that all changed one day when she began to forget names and faces. She did funny things like put the silverware in the fridge and the cake in sink. At first it was so funny, Amy says.
But soon Dad started watching her with a furrow on his brow and things just kept getting worse and worse until they were as they were today.
Sometimes when Grandma comes over, I watch her. I like playing with her most of the time, but sometimes I wish I could have a grandma that lets me lick out the bowl after making a cake, and reads scary stories to me at night and plays checkers with me on winter nights.
Sometimes when she is sitting quietly, I go to her. I reach and touch her, just to see if she feels like other people. Her hands are wrinkly like other old people’s hands, like my hands look when I take a bath too long. But her eyes don’t look like other old people’s eyes. They are blue, but when she looks at me, she doesn’t really see me. Amy says grandma has Al Seimer, but I don’t know who Al Seimer is. I only know Al Miller. After Amy says that, the next time he comes to talk with Dad about the price of hay, I watch him carefully. But he never even talks to grandma, so I don’t think it is him. Perhaps he comes in the night to visit grandma and grandpa.
I am chasing the last cheerio around in my bowl of milk with my spoon. I like to pretend that the cheerio is a fish and the spoon is a shark. This morning the windows are open and a slight breeze pours in through the window. It is June, my favorite month because it is my birthday month. The shark has almost caught the fish, and I am just ready to ask Mom how many more days until my birthday when grandpa comes panting up the steps.
His white wavy hair sticks up like it does when you rub a balloon over the carpet on winter days and hold it over your hair.
“Grandma.. grandma… there’s something wrong,” he says. “I thought she just wanted to sleep in. But she’s not responding.”
I want to look away. I don’t like to see grandpa upset. Grandpa and dad never get upset.
Dad leaves the table without a word and runs out the door. I can see grandpa follow slowly, his shoulders slumping.
“But mom,” I say, “where did Grandma go?”
My mom hugs me, her long arms drawing me close. “I think she died, Anna. That’s what he means.”
I saw a dead cat once. Amy’s cat. It was lying on the road by the mailbox when Dad went to get the paper one morning. It had probably been hit by a car while it was hunting for mice in the ditch, Dad said. I remember seeing it a little, but I didn’t like to look at it much because it was bloody and messed up. It didn’t look like Whiskers anymore.
But I have never seen a person dead.
Aunt Dorothea comes the next day, but she doesn’t laugh as much as she usually does. Then come Uncle Roger and Aunt Nellie, Aunt MaryLynn and Aunt Lorena, and Aunt Barbie. Mom says they came for the funeral.
Other times, I like when they come. They bring good food and candy, and tell stories all afternoon and evening, and everything is jolly. But this time, nobody seems to pay attention to me. Keith and Amy go outside to help Dad with the barn chores, acting important that they can do something to help. But I am too little.
The morning of the funeral, I wipe the last bit of egg from my bowl using the buttered middle of my toast.
I ask Mom, “Where is Grandma, Mom?”
Mom stops spreading the glaze on the cinnamon rolls like she is surprised and looks at me.
“She went to heaven, Anna.”
“But where is heaven, Mom? And how did she go? Did she want to go?”
Mom waits a long time, and she looks out the window.
Then she speaks. “Anna, I don’t know where heaven is. All I know, is that it’s with Jesus. And Anna, I really don’t know how it works. All I know is that only Grandma’s body is here, but she isn’t inside it anymore.”
“She isn’t inside it anymore? But how could she go without her body? How could she walk?”
Mom comes over across the room and sits down beside me. Her hands grasp mine, hard and strong and a little sticky from the cinnamon roll glaze.
“I really don’t know, child. But I do think she wanted to go.”
“Why, mom? Why would she want to go? How do you know?”
Mom sighs, and she looks out the window again. “Anna, you remember hearing stories of how Grandma used to be, right? When I was young, she was the best mother I could have asked for. She was kind. She was strong and healthy, and could walk and talk like other people. But then she got sick. Like her mind got sick. And even though we took her to the doctor, he couldn’t help her. But now, she is like she used to be again. Her old mind and body that were sick are left behind and she went to heaven.”
I nod. And swallow the lump in my throat. I feel funny and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. So I pretend to understand. But I don’t really. How could Grandma not be in her body anymore?
The funeral is long and warm. I see Grandma in the box, but she doesn’t move. I think about what Mom said about Grandma not being here anymore, and wonder what it means. There are so many people. I can’t breathe because there are too many people, and I don’t know where Grandma has gone. I hold Mom’s hand tight, tight the way Grandma used to hold her doll when she cried. I watch them put the dirt over her. How will Grandma go to heaven if there is dirt over her? I don’t want to cry. Big girls like me don’t cry. I try and try and try to hold it back, but suddenly I can’t. Mom picks me up and holds me. I cry till her shoulder is wet. I don’t care anymore about being a big girl.
That evening, I sit on the wooden steps. Mom is making strawberry shortcake for all the aunts and uncles that are still here. They are laughing now.
I like the night like this. It is quiet and safe. I feel tired from crying so hard. I put my feet down on the grass. It is soft and wet. The darkness comes creeping over the lawn, like it has a secret to tell.
Suddenly a little light blinks on, and then off, right above my head. A little bit later another light blinks on and off.
I stand up in wonder. It’s fireflies! I remember last year when the fireflies came! Keith and Amy and I chased them over the lawn and caught them with a net. One time we put them in a jar and watched them fly around.
Their lights blink on and off all over the lawn, above the wet, cool grass. Quickly and quietly, I run into the kitchen and climb onto the counter. I grab an empty glass jar on the shelf. I don’t want Keith and Amy to see me. I don’t know why, but I want this to be my secret.
Out on the lawn, little lanterns blink by the hundreds above the dewy grass. I have never seen so many. I watch, and chase them. They dance over my head. I catch one and watch as it crawls over my hand, its light slowly glimmering on and off. I put it in my jar and screw on the lid. I chase the others. Sometimes I almost have them in my hand and then they flit away. Finally, the jar is filled with tiny lanterns, blinking, flitting. Mom is calling me to come eat strawberry shortcake with the aunts and uncles. I run upstairs with the jar and put it on the windowsill.
After supper is over, mom makes me go to bed. She says I am tired and need to have a long night of sleep. For once I don’t complain. I lie in bed and watch the fireflies in the jar. Amy comes up. I decide to tell her about the fireflies, but she doesn’t really listen. She is getting too grown up and is getting boring. I am never going to grow up.
After she is asleep beside me, I lie still, very still and think. The crickets are singing under the wooden porch again. Outside, a new sliver of a moon is coming up. It looks like a boat that floats crookedly through the sky, like if you would ride in it, you could almost fall out. A few feet on the windowsill is my jar of fireflies.
The fireflies are flying inside the jar. I see them from here. They fly against the glass and bounce off. Silly little fireflies, I think. They don’t know what the glass is. They don’t know that they can’t break the glass. But still they fly against it and bounce off, again and again.
Where do they want to go, I wonder? Why don’t they like it in the jar? I wonder what it would be like to be a firefly. To dance across the lawn at night when the sun goes down and turn my light on and off. I would be the fastest firefly. And I would dance all night long.
I wonder where grandma is. I wonder if she likes fireflies. I wonder if they have fireflies in heaven. I wonder if Grandma caught fireflies and put them in a jar when she was a little girl.
I sit straight up in bed. I look at the fireflies again. They are still flying in the jar, bouncing off the glass, wanting to get out. I wonder if they are scared.
I crawl out of the bed, the floor cool to my bare toes. I tiptoe to the window, trying not to wake Amy. I take the jar off the windowsill and screw off the lid. The window is open and I hold the jar outside. The fireflies pour from the jar, fairylights gleaming. They fly into the night, free from the glass that held them in, dancing and dancing and dancing, until they are lost in the night.
Currently for my creative writing class at Payap University, our homework is to write an hour a day. About anything. Today as I sat beside the Mae Ping river, this is one of the things I wrote.
At the end of a warm day, I sit on my bed, hot, tired and restless, still not feeling the best from a 3 day bout of either food poisoning or flu. Too tired to continue the letter I am composing, I toss it away and switch off the light, dozing off and on for about an hour.
I awake, feeling discontented, disgruntled and disoriented and with one underlying thought- I need to get out of my house. Somehow its walls seem confining, and my restless brain and body yearn for something else, yet I’m not sure what.
The question is, where? I didn’t need any food supplies and in this mood, I am certainly not prepared to go into Big C’s WalMart atmosphere, I’m not hungry for supper, and I have no errands to run.
I don’t have any place to go, but my one driving thought is, “go.”
So I go, go, go, riding my motorbike down the small street, letting the cool night wind caress my warm face, praying as I go, wishing the bike beneath me would be a flesh and blood horse.
God, where should I go? Why am I doing this? Where am I going?
Around curves and corners, take a left here and a right there. Draw a deep breath. Inhale the sweet greenness of a rice field. Lean into a curve to the right. Slow down to gaze in awe at a thousand glimmering lights. Turn around and head back this street. Take a left and see what’s down here.
I am relaxing. Slowly but surely, the night is doing its work.
And then I turn the corner and see it. In front of a small building, a sign with large English letters:
“God loves you.”
It’s like a drink of cold water on a Kansas harvest day. Deep inside I want to stop at the little Thai church with music spilling out of its doors, but I keep on driving, wanting more.
I drive down a dimly lit street. It turns out to be a one way street, and at the end of it a howling fury of dog comes hurtling out of the gate. It’s been a long time since my hair stood up on end like that and with the nightmarish rapidity of a sluggish turtle, I finally manage to turn my bike around on the narrow alley and flee with a prayer of thankfulness on my lips.
I keep on, always planning to turn around at the next corner and return home. But I keep on going and going and going. I drive past dimly lit houses and shops that are closed for the night. I stop at a stoplight and listen to the friendly banter of two men on motorbikes. I follow some tuks tuks laden with tourists into some more winding streets and then turn around. Suddenly a thought hits me as I glance at the people and the bikes all around me.
All of them are going somewhere. All of them are doing something. Going home to their family. Spending time with friends.
And then I realize why I am driving out on my bike and what I am looking for.
Without realizing it, I am looking for home.
I have friends here, I have a God family here, I have people to connect with here on this side of the world, but there always seems to be some sort of a loneliness that accompanies everything I do. Many times I relish it, this loneliness and disconnected feeling that drives me closer to my real home in heaven, drives me closer to the Father of fathers that I know is watching out for me.
But sometimes it can be overwhelming. Like tonight. And I realize why my hungry senses breathed in the lushness of the rice field. I realize why I stopped and gazed thirstily at the sign that said, “God loves you!” I realize why the flickering lights lured me and why the friendly conversation between the two men on bikes grabbed my attention. There was something about home in each one, not just my earthly home, but my real one as well. I can’t explain exactly what, but as I realize that, something clicks for me.
I turn left at the next stoplight and head home, exhausted, but relaxed.
insearchofabrook 