Anniversaries

What is it about anniversaries that we attach so much meaning to? We mark the passing of time with arbitrary labels, yet upon a certain time marker we feel the need for celebration or we feel old pain anew.

When our loved ones are with us, it makes sense to do something with or for them to acknowledge their importance in our lives. But when someone is gone, how would they know if we notice the date or not? Still, it feels wrong to not mark the occasion, as if we aren't giving proper respect.

Bottled Joy: Poem of the Day

Everyone should read Walt Whitman much more often than any of us do! "Song of Myself" has lines  that I think of regularly, which says a lot since I often forget what I read. Whitman's poetry feels like bottled joy or lightning or the untiring exuberance of a child. Just slowly, slowly open the cap...and breathe...and revel...

From "Song of Myself" 

by Walt Whitman

#6 

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. 

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green 

     stuff woven. 

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, 

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see 

    and remark, and say Whose? 

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. 

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, 

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, 

Growing among black folks as among white, 

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I 

     receive them the same. 

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. 

Tenderly will I use you curling grass, 

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, 

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, 

It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out 

     of their mothers' laps, 

And here you are the mothers' laps. 

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, 

Darker than the colorless beards of old men, 

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. 

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, 

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. 

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, 

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken 

     soon out of their laps. 

What do you think has become of the young and old men? 

And what do you think has become of the women and children? 

They are alive and well somewhere, 

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, 

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the 

     end to arrest it, 

And ceas'd the moment life appeared. 

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, 

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Graduating

It's graduation season!

Graduation is always a poignant time for me, of endings as well as beginnings. This year has been, shall we say, full of growing opportunities--big ones, like that one of my kids is now a driver and another is graduating high school, my sister remarried, my mom died last August after a painful and long struggle, and now my dad is remarrying in a couple of weeks.

It feels like I keep having multiple 6.0 personal earthquakes. I'm trying to grab on to something or someone, desperate to keep pressing forward even as the ground heaves.

I thought of these major life changes, and especially my mom, when I heard "For Good" from Wicked sung by this week high schoolers and the lyrics (again) touched me powerfully. (The words are below, or you might like also to hear it sung beautifully by Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth on Youtube by clicking play below.)