phoenix in the house

I feel like a woman who was hit by a truck and had a near-death experience--and now all I want to do is live! This is manifesting as a desire to do all kinds of new things. In the past month I've had a number of firsts: first rounds of golf, first time to the horse races, first time to a boxing match. At each one I realized that so much skill is involved. I have a new, growing appreciation for the abilities of the human body.

And I also have a growing appreciation for fun! I have so many loving friends who've been inviting me (the single gal!) to join them for the activities I've described above, as well as meals, swimming pool & wine afternoons ... And this isn't just about fun, but it's about human connection. I'm coming out of the cave of grief and into the light of celebration of life.

I'm also feeling the desire to write again. It's been a few months since I've had the focus or drive to write, but I can feel stories and poems swimming in my veins.

As my friend Sally said, life is amazing; it wants to live.

Here are a few words from Walt Whitman on that score:

O LIVING always—always dying!
O the burials of me, past and present!
O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever!
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not—I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at, where I cast them!
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind!

Summer Music, Summer Reading

Divorce poems

I haven't posted in so long because of what's going on in my life. I wanted to check in and say that I'm alive and struggling with trying to face the truth of my life right now...that after 15 years I'm in the process of a divorce. I know many of you already know this about my life and have experienced such difficulties yourselves. It's an excruciating time, especially since this is not my choice, but as the song says I will survive--lyrics I must trust.

I will be back to the blog again when I'm feeling healthier and stronger. In the meantime, feel free to check in with me on Facebook. And I close for a time with two poems that emanate my truths.

The Afternoon Sun
by C. P. Cavafy (Translated by Aliki Barnstone)

This room, how well I know it.
Now they rent it and the one next door
as commercial offices. The whole house became
offices for agents and merchants and companies.

Ah, this room, how familiar.

The couch was near the door, here;
in front, a Turkish rug;
near the couch, two yellow vases on a shelf.
On the right, no, across from it, was an armoire with a mirror.
In the middle, the table where he wrote
and three wicker chairs.
Next to the window was the bed
where we made love so many times.

These sad things must still be somewhere.

Next to the window was the bed;
the afternoon sun spread across halfway.

...One afternoon at four o'clock, we separated,
just for a week....Alas,
that week became forever.


*

A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention
by Yehuda Amichai


They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a wife* and wife.
Wings and everything.We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.


(*original says "man")