September 18, 2008

They say you need to clear away clutter to make room for new and better things in your life. Today I felt good when I moved the printer and found an ancient pile of papers that I'd thought important one time. A name of an accountant I hoped would do my tax return. He's in the bike club I'm in. A movie I wanted to rent. Post cards I needed to send to stop getting junk mail. A picture of a former lover. I review of a book I wanted to order. Did I order it? I can't remember. I shoved the whole lot into the trash.

I check email and see yet another sad remnant from a recently ended love affair. He sends pictures of our last night together. We were ecstatic. Had spent the day making love in a shabby chic room of a beach hotel. We were on our way to a late dinner, flushed with good sex and happiness, and the clerk at the desk offered to take our picture. She thought we were newlyweds.

This desk where I write is a mess, even though I've spent thousands of dollars on furniture and organizational items to clear space. Clear a space for what? For poems? For emails of regret? For explanations of what went wrong? For yearnings for lasting love? Where is the space for that?

September 18, 2007


A few days ago, a friend of mine, knowing that I had turned sixty this summer, sent me some jokes about people over sixty. The jokes were pretty lame, and I brushed the email aside without much thought. They're silly and meaningless, right? I mean, he wouldn't have sent this if he really thought I was old, would he? You don't send fat jokes to a fat person, right?

The truth is, though, I didn't brush them aside so easily. In fact, the effect of those jokes hung around me like the bad odor of an overcooked meal until eventually I felt the need to clear the air. For a host of undoubtedly complex reasons (not the least of which is my own discomfort at finding myself in the category of 60+), I decided to present another attitude about sexagenarians, one that I think applies so much better than the version presented in these jokes. So here we go. The "joke" is in Q&A. My responses come after the "LL."

Q: Where can women over the age of 60 find young, sexy men who are interested in them?
A: Try a bookstore under fiction.

LL: The women I know over sixty seem to attract men of all ages, since they are most usually able to appreciate men for who they are and to accept them right where they are in their unique journey in life. They tend to ignore flaws or lapses in decorum in people and focus fully on the amazing qualities of the person in front of them. And yes, sometimes--more often than you might think--a sixty-year old woman can attract and amuse a tan, strong, agile young farmer boy in all manner of ways.

Q: What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause?
A: Keep busy. If you're handy with tools, you can finish the basement. When you are done, you will have a place to live.

LL: The women I know who are going through menopause are giddy with the joy that they no longer have to endure the vicissitudes of a body that waxes and wanes with the moon. They are free to indulge their sexual appetites (which tend to increase after the age of 60) without specter of pregnancy and they tend to be unfettered lovers. My guess is that if a man does not like the behavior of his wife, it probably has a lot more to do with something he's doing (or not doing) than it does with menopause.

Q: How can you avoid spotting a wrinkle every time you walk by a mirror?
A: The next time you're in front of a mirror, take off your glasses.

LL: A lot of women I know would never deny wrinkles on their faces. They see them as well-earned markers of the myriad experiences that have shaped them, made them uniquely who they are. But yes, there are some of us who would rather avoid those markers, and we have no qualms whatsoever with getting a good shot of Botox. Voila! Wrinkles are gone! No need to throw away those glasses.

Q: Why should 60+ year old people use valet parking?
A: Valets don't forget where they park your car.

LL: I agree, women over sixty like to use valet parking. But not just because they often fail to remember where they've parked their car. Valet parking is a great way to meet energetic young men. That's why women over sixty use valet parking.

Q: Is it common for 60+ year olds to have problems with short term memory storage?
A: Storing memory is not a problem, retrieving it is a problem.

LL: You don't have to be 60 to have retrieval problems. I've noticed twenty-year-olds who have trouble retrieving information these days. Why else would they carry around backpacks filled with technological retrieval systems?

Q: As people age, do they sleep more soundly?
A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon.

LL: I'll admit it, women over sixty do tend to take an occasional afternoon nap--and sometimes long, leisurely respites in which they allow themselves to sink into a deep, dark pool of restorative sleep. But they do this because they've become very wise and careful about honoring their bodies. They totally get the importance of going the distance. They've learned the art of pacing themselves throughout the day (and life) so they can preserve their energy for truly worthwhile efforts. Like powering through a two-hour ashtanga yoga class every evening. Or building a Habit for Humanity house during their vacation. Or hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains. Or enjoying long sessions of tantric sex with young, agile, farmer boys. Or engaging in intense conversations about life, love, and the meaning of the universe with any man who doesn't have limiting biases about what sixty-year-old women are really like . . . .

Q: Where do 60+ year olds look for fashionable glasses?
A: Their foreheads.

LL: Yep, most of my sixty-year-old friends are quite fashionable, even as they search.

Q: What is the most common remark made by 60+ year olds when they enter antique stores?
A: "I remember these."

LL: Ok, I'll grant you this one, too. A sixty-year-old might indeed find familiar items in an antique store. At this age, they have a deep appreciation for the art and artifacts of the past, as well as for the technology and industry of the twenty-first century. They carry in their bones the depth of living that gives them a wide perspective on art and style and a healthy doubt of fads and flim-flam. They like things that are well-constructed, expertly crafted, and have endured the test of time. They admire people who have devoted their time and creative energy to creating things of beauty. They know quality when they see it.

LL: And here's one more point to add to the list of qualities of the sixty-year-old women I know. After having suffered through financially devastating divorces, raised children, supported relatives, buried parents, and worked harder for less money than their equally educated male peers, most sixty-year-old women I know have been amazingly resourceful and responsible with their finances. So much so that at this age they are able to give generously to others. That's a really wonderful thing that comes with six decades of living: you begin to see how much more fun it is to give things than to get things.

LL: And finally, I'd like to say that the sixty-year-old women I hang around with are fascinating women, in spite of their occasional gaffs in the area of data retrieval and mechanical skill. They are grounded, secure, happy, productive, experimental, able to change, willing to accept, devoted to love, and intensely committed to raising the consciousness of the world by doing the deep and profound work of waking up. They are striving to live with truth, beauty, grace, equanimity, and joy. They believe passionately in the possibility of true love. They are amazing women, and I am uplifted every time I'm in their presence.

So when I get emails like this one (from a friend!), it just makes me wonder: what sixty-year- olds have you been hangin' around with???

Prepared

You can't want to write a poem.
It ruins all possibility.
You receive poems.
Everyone says this. It's a given.
So maybe the poet's job is not so much about writing
as it is about getting prepared.
You build a nest,
finding just the right combination of twigs and thread and mulch.
Or you make a bed,
tucking the corners of freshly laundered sheets just so,
fluffing the pillows, and laying on the down comforter.
Or you dig a hole and add peat moss and fertilizer,
loosening the soil for tender, new roots.
Or you sweep off the front porch and unlock the front door.
You sit comfortably in your favorite chair,
rest your outstretched arms on your knees, palms up.
You buy beautiful containers,
a box with bright ribbon,
an antique sugar bowl,
a crystal vase,
an urn fit for the ashes of a loved one.
And then,
you wait.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Silence helps me know more precisely what my heart wants. I will never be satisfied with what my head wants. It is a wolf, hungry always and careless in its choices. But sometimes, when I submit to silence, I see the shape of my true yearnings more clearly. And I know I will not be the agent of their fulfillment. I know I will be fed.

"You too can be carved anew by the details of your devotion." -- Mary Oliver

Friday, May 18, 2007

Teachers thrive on the achievements of their students. This past semester brought lots of good news from my students. Several were accepted in the graduate programs of their choice. Some nailed down jobs they wanted badly. Two of my favorites became engaged to one another, and to make it even better, the proposal took place in my class! That was a career highpoint. Like most who are called to this profession, I fall in love with my students, and when they move on to the next best version of themselves, I'm as happy as a parent would be.
Last week I got word of another pride-inducing achievement from one of my former students--proof that her creative life is alive and thrivin--in the form of a poem.
Calypso Strawn is a talented writer I had the pleasure of working with a few years ago. In spite of being dogged by various demons, she was a positive catalyst in class, a passionate if insecure writer, a keen student, and a searcher of the highest order. Her intellect was dominated by her emotions, which ran deep and often splashed onto the shores of her life at inopportune times. She wept easily. She laughed with abandon. She revealed her feelings without regret, and she often challenged others to do the same. In an earlier time, she would have been called uninhibited. Today, I would call her provocative.
I knew I would love working with her, and work we did in several workshops. She made stunning progress as a student, graduated one of our strongest writers, and was chosen one of four students to read her work at our annual student reading. For a couple of years after graduation, she showed up at various readings or writing events, but after a while, as always happens, life takes over and our stars form new constellations and begin shining elsewhere. It's just the way of the academic world.
So last week, I was delighted to receive by email a new poem from Calypso. The accompanying note simply said she had written this about being in my class, and she wanted to share it with me.

The Wheel of fortune Turned, A Campaign

Forty months since I perched I that classroom
twice again longer since cuddling my arms over
gooseflesh, sprinkler ratatat on the window rows,
stomach full of lizard tails and roads that wound
into mountains cast blue by the banner of storms;
she said, this one saw blood and fought through,
a woman who tells the best story in fine words,

the woman seated across the table from me, her
blackish red hair hugging her cheeks, smile and
furrowed brow. Not a decision, but a crossing
of the wires in my brain, green lights soldered
by days and nights spent leaning into page, screen,
haunting the labs, the dusty creep. "Let it be me,"
I prayed to no one, with no other lust but a

crown of honor for then to see. I drove nights,
slept mornings, ate juniper berries and drank
rain. No one promised a thing, nor warned me
about the throne, how a few inches of dais take
you to the edge of space, and no one can find
you there but gods who've lost their names.
Forty months ago she said of me, this one saw blood. . .


My heart nearly broke with happiness at this piece of writing. What teacher wouldn't beam to have a student who can write like this?
When I was Calypso's teacher, I came to expect strong writing, powerful images, intense language and emotion from her. But this poem reveals an even more skilled writer than the Calypso I knew. Even without remembering the exact circumstance she is talking about, I was pulled into an intensity of emotion that marks good poems. How does she do that, I wondered. How can she make word and line resonate with such feeling, such awareness? Even though I wasn't sure exactly what moment she was talking about from my class, I was totally riveted by the power of her poetic memory. And so I asked her, how did this poem come about? What triggered these images?
A few days later, she sent another email, this one doing what no poet should be asked to do, but since we shared the teacher-student bond, I trust she felt comfortable doing some interpretation for me. She wrote back:

The poem mentions the first story I wrote, "mountains," in your autobiography workshop. The stanza ends with you praising a woman I grew jealous of. I studied her, and decided to become that woman myself. The following summer, in your point-of-view course, I found myself sitting in the same chair as the dark haired woman you had praised. I remember your hands on my shoulder, and the time we whispered about a story. The poem ends with you saying good things about me and my writing to the other students. Your words strengthen me.

This explication reminded me of how tentative Calypso was about her writing in her first year at Rollins, how much encouragement she needed, and how she blossomed under constructive praise. The poem so beautifully captures Calypso's yearning to be a good writer, a yearning that is today fully realized.
Later in her email she says, "I've been seeking an inner-queen, to bring her to my outer self." And that line, maybe more than the poem, delighted me. Here is a talented young writer who knows now that the calling to her highest self comes from within, not from without. When she sent me this poem, it was not a plea for praise, merely a demonstration of her full expression. I ask you, is there any better way to see your students living their creative lives?
In college, I could teach her about line and meter, rhyme and image, but what good is that? That's mere stuff of books. Somehow, long before she entered my classroom, Calypso acquired the poet-seed. I might have sprinkled a little water on that seed, but she knew how to make it grow. She knew how to enter dark places, to spill fresh blood onto white sheets and boldly arrange shape and color. I could only point a bony finger to her substantial self and say look here at the poet-body, how it breathes and walks and talks all on its own, without my help, in spite of my hindrances (for next week, write a villanelle). Her passion, her intensity, her attention to subtle fractures of mind, to tiny gestures of the heart, these are the stuff of Calypso's world, stuff that can't be gleaned from textbooks or teachers, only from an inner-goddess.
A good poem is driven by strong image, but it is sustained by a hidden narrative. And whether you know the story of that particular moment experienced in my classroom or not, this poem pierces us with feelings called up by image piled upon image. Forty months later, I am happy to repeat that Calypso is a woman who tells the best story in fine words.

May 5, 2007



Perfectly Still

Finally, the last blossom has fallen from the orchid
we bought in January.
The hardy oncidium caught your eye,
its long arching branch burdened by delicate,
yellow blossoms with exotic maroon splatterings.
A good choice for my north window,
it thrives with one or more hours of sun a day;
its fleshy leaves need less-frequent
watering than thin-leaved varieties;
it requires fertilizer only once a month.

I didn't know it would be the last time.
The blossoms held tight to that dipping branch for weeks--
longer than would be expected for this New World genus.
Then, in mid-April, as my heart loosened its grip on our story,
they began to drop, one by one, covering the glass-top table with
full blooms that would not wither, but held vibrancy even in the fall.

Last night as I was sitting on the stairs in the dark,
arm folded around cold arm, the house perfectly still,
I heard the soft tap of a blossom hit the glass and
in my temporary blindness, could only imagine the graceful,
loosened arch of the resilient oncidium stem, anchored as it was to its soil.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Part II of the answer to the question, "What have you learned this year?"

This is a follow-up to the last entry. As I mentioned there, the question Bob Snyder posed was quite provocative. And today's entry actually concludes my answer to Bob's question, "What have you learned this year?" Bob knew, of course, that in addition to losing my good long-time friend Brian on April 16 of last year, that I had also had an intense relationship with Brian's brother Bret right on the heels of Brian's death. Both Hubert brothers have been profound teachers for me. I try to sum up the lesson here.


I have been a student of world religions, philosophy, and psychology most of my life. I have read widely in the literature of human consciousness and behavior. I have spent countless hours talking with intelligent, thoughtful, insightful people. I have a hopeful, if spotty, prayer life. I have attended countless to workshops; I have read self-help books; I have filled reams of paper with my thoughts, yearnings, queries, hopes, frustrations, and desperate pleas. I have spent eight years in therapy and coaching with a psychologist I admire and respect. Having dabbled in Buddhism since my twenties, during the last ten years I have undertaken a serious study of Buddhism, a philosophy and spiritual practice that resonates deeply with me. I have a satisfying meditation practice, and for the last five years I have been a dedicated student of yoga. All of these works/practices have set the stage for each spiritual lesson I learn, each dawning that rises hard-earned over my horizon.
But as any student/novitiate knows, as we go about learning our lessons, we absorb them in different ways, sometimes at different levels of understanding. And we often have to experience the lesson again (and again) in order to get it at increasingly deeper levels. All learning is, for sure, idiosyncratic. For some, and I think I'm one, lessons come first to the intellect, and only later do they infuse the heart. This year, a lesson that has been eluding me for years, finally clarified. And Bret was certainly a central catalyst in this lesson, as was his brother Brian.

As was the incredible teacher, Pema Chodrin, a Buddhist nun in the Shambhala tradition. So I begin with her, and one of the basic teachings of the Shambhala tradition. I am paraphrasing here from an article that appeared in the May 2007 issue of Shambhala Sun. She says there that human misery arises as we desperately seek to get away from pain and seek happiness. Now, this may seem to be a very obvious fact to many. But this year, this notion finally came alive for me.
For most of my life, I have thought the whole purpose of life was to flee pain with every strategy and skill you have and to seek happiness with every resource at your command. I thought my job was to be happy and joyful and that any time I was not was a sign of weakness, misguided behavior, or sheer failure. Because of this belief, I have spent a good part of my life actually avoiding certain kinds of feelings: sadness, grief, disappointment, failure, loss, etc. To give space to these feelings has been wrong in my paradigm. The goal has been to stay as far away from those feelings as possible. Then, life will be good.
Chodrin explains, though, that feelings of depression, loneliness, betrayal--any unwanted feeling--"is an important moment on the spiritual path. This is where real transformation can take place." She says that the cycle of trying to avoid these feelings is what makes us feel out of control, more unhappy, and essentially weak. She says we should be asking ourselves these questions: "Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace--disappointment in all its many forms--and let it open me?"
Let it open me. That is the core of the lesson I've learned. It never occurred to me that feeling these unwanted feelings was the very path to opening and awareness that I have been seeking. It never occurred to me that my pain had something to teach me, something to show me, that it was the pointer to the very path I needed to walk. And so, because I couldn't view pain as my teacher, I avoided her. When she appeared, I withdrew, as Bret showed me in so many ways. In an earlier part of my life, my primary method of withdrawal was work. But it also had to have been a pattern that Bret identified so well: my tendency to pull into my own head and become self-absorbed. He showed me that when I do this, I am completely incapable of considering the feelings or position of another person, and so I am unable to be compassionate with what someone else is feeling or experiencing. This pattern, of course, is deadly to a relationship. I have learned this lesson the hard way.
Chodrin says that our work here is to catch ourselves in these patterns. Then, "right on the spot, through practice, we can get very familiar with the barriers that we put up around our hearts and around our whole being. We can become intimate with just how we hide out, doze off, freeze up. And that intimacy, coming to know these barriers so well, is what begins to dismantle them. Amazingly, when we give them our full attention they start to fall apart" (p. 60).
And here's the practice: "Becoming intimate with pain is the key to changing at the core of our being--staying open to everything we experience, letting the sharpness of difficult times pierce us to the heart." So isn't this ironic. All these years I've been seeking transformation through so many methods, so many practices, and I have simultaneously been avoiding the very practice that will lead me to what my heart most desperately wants. Is this ironic? Or is this some sort of cruel joke? Or is this just another experience to be accepted with equanimity? "Let difficulty transform you," Chodrin says.

In so many ways Bret offered this lesson, and his frustration with me grew from my slow acceptance of a notion that was self-evident to him. In retrospect, I can understand much of his behavior that at the time seemed unnecessarily harsh to me.

So as painful as this year has been for me, maybe that's what it took for me to wake up to this important lesson. Maybe my heart had not been sufficiently broken to hear this wisdom. My days are richer, calmer, deeper now because of this new practice of attending to all my emotional states, not just the good ones. I have certainly had lots of opportunity to sit with pain, and loss, and disappointment over the past twelve months. And each time I sit gently with my pain, I can feel myself dropping down to a new place of awareness and openness to this life experience.
In another article in the May issue of Shambhala Sun, Susan Piver writes about dealing with negative emotions, especially fear. She advocates that we be gentle with ourselves when we are thrown into the pit. The point, she says, is to let what you feel arise "without ignoring it, obsessing over it, cataloging it, or getting freaked out by it" (71). She says the point is not to get rid of the feeling, but to get better at learning how to "quickly stabilize your attention on what you're feeling." And then accept it. Just accept it. Don't run away from it. Don't stuff it. Don't be swept away by it. Just watch it.

And one more article has crossed my path this week. (Isn't this interesting? It's like learning a new word and suddenly you see that word all over the place. ha.) Sally Kempton writes in the June Yoga Journal saying, "It's easy to get mired in sadness. But it's also possible to let sorrow move through you and open you to the light within your heart." She says that negative feelings, though often toxic to our minds and bodies, can also be "ladders to transcendence." She, like the spiritual teacher Gangaji, warns against the stories we create around our bad feelings. "It's our stories as much as the losses themselves that perpetuate the sadness, even becoming self-fulfilling blueprints that shape future situations." She too, like Chodrin, says my job is to work with these sad feelings, to watch myself as I get caught in them, and to have a practice that will take me out of my self-absorption, beyond the 'me' that identifies with the emotion. I am not this sadness. I am not this grief. These are simply feelings that are moving through me, and if I let them, they will open me to greater experience than I thought possible in this life form.

And one last angle on this lesson, this one from the yoga mat. So if the trick is to stay with the feeling, how does a person who has spent her life fleeing such a practice re-train herself? On the mat, of course. My yoga practice has been one of my greatest teachers the past five years. This process of staying with the feeling is one that I've come to understand acutely as I practice the asanas day after day. So many times, a yoga pose presents me with an enormous challenge. I think, "This is too hard. Stop doing this." Or, "I'm not flexible enough, I'll never be able to do that pose." Or, "I can't breathe, this has to be bad for me." Or the best one, "This hurts, I'd better stop." The forms of resistance are infinite. If you're taking your practice seriously, you can almost count on experiencing unwanted or unfamiliar or awkward feelings when you start opening up space in your body. I may feel tired, or I may feel distracted, or I may feel competitive, or I may be comparing myself to other more agile bodies. The permutations of "getting stuck" are endless. But the deep practice of yoga teaches me to stay, teaches me to pay attention to the breath, to be present, to accept where I am at this very moment, and to know that where I am is exactly where I am supposed to be. Let the feeling come, then let it move on out of you, my teacher says. Don't let it lodge in the body. I don't think it's an accident that my yoga practice is deepening at exactly the same time that I'm becoming more emotionally flexible and mature. The body, the mind, and the heart: they are an integrative system.

So these past two weeks since the anniversary of Brian's death and the introduction of Bret into my life, I seem to have finally consolidated some lessons that have been a long time coming to me. I'm not saying I've mastered them. I'm just so keenly aware of the power of staying with how I feel. Whether it's a good or bad, doesn't matter. Being in the experience, fully and without judgment, will lead me to the next best version of myself.