I Am
The fox cannot help being stealthy.
The rose cannot help being thorny.
The sun cannot help being fiery.
And I cannot help being Kathryn.
Even in my sleep, I dream of creating.
Even in my sadness, I love my life.
I swim in the rivers of my curiosity.
I climb through the mountains of my awe.
I travel for years and years.
And on the other side
is Kathryn, beautiful Kathryn,
her vibrant energy reverberating in the world.-Kathryn Harper
Poem to Myself
No one knows the gray fox that dreams in me.
No one knows that my heart is a curious puzzleI carry through the night toward the horizon.No one knows the wonder I savor.But I do. I do.I will wake today and chase my senses.I will walk today and notice the details.I will explore until I catch the Mystery.Gray fox, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.-Kathryn Harper
On Monday I begin radiation, which I'm referring to as stage two. My good fortune is that the surgery got all the tumor, which was very, very small, with no lymph node involvement. Because it was so small and localized, I qualify for partial breast radiation of only five sessions every other day. Again, a case for early detection when there is a family history and/or dense breast tissue. The MRI caught the cancer, not the mammogram. I expect there will be an aftereffect of fatigue once it's done. But only five sessions!
Once I'm done with that on July 1, I'll begin taking the aromatase inhibitors, a medication that targets this cancer if it recurs in another part of my body. I'm to take this for five years. The only concern is that it can cause severe joint pain, brain fog, and osteoporosis. Having worked very hard to lose weight and become fit and enjoying the absence of joint pain as a result, I hope this isn't a side effect I have to deal with. If I can't tolerate the med I was prescribed, there are other ones, though they all have similar beastly side effects. And perhaps I'll be lucky again and not experience any. (The osteoporosis is a concern, since my mother had it severely and my Dexa scan last year showed early bone thinning.)
One step at a time.
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
EncouragementLet yourself be the earth and the days be weather.Storms come, but they pass. Do not follow them.Enjoy the sun. Notice the bees kiss the flowerswhile you listen to a crow shout her opinions to the world.What a gift, to be!!-Kathryn Harper
Even though it was caught early, even though the tumors are small, even though I've been told it's slow-growing and have an excellent prognosis, the fact is that I have an illness that could eventually kill me.
I need to get genetic testing, because apparently there are new ways to identify vulnerability to cancers. I need to decide whether to do a lumpectomy + radiation + 5-10 years of medication (with gnarly side effects), or to get a bilateral mastectomy (major amputation surgery) and hope that this eliminates the risk. The problem is, cancer can come back in other locations. One stray cancer cell that evades treatment can migrate somewhere else and not be identified until it's quite advanced. Additionally, my mother had metastatic melanoma as well as breast cancer. She had both at the time of her death. So, I have a 50% chance of developing melanoma.
While we all die of something eventually, knowing shifts and hits different when you are told your body has been overtaken by renegade cells.
I'm 62, and I've worked hard over the past four years to get healthy, including losing 75 pounds, doing strength training and cardio regularly, and eating nutritious food. I appreciate my body and all it can do. I've cherished the improvement of my health; I made this change because I witnessed my mother's drastic and painful decline, which resulted partly from neglect, and I want a more functional elderhood. I was looking forward to launching my kid to college this fall and having an empty nest and new adventures with my husband.
Now all that comes to a screeching halt.
I loathe the term "journey." It romanticizes an experience that is fucking traumatic. This is not a journey. Nor is it an expedition, a trek, a trip, a safari, or a passage of any kind. It is a goddamn inconvenience. It is frightening and painful and difficult. It is an obstacle to joy and thriving. If you want to help, don't use that word when communicating with me. I'm slow to anger, but these days my tolerance is paper-thin.
Sacraments of the Morning
Isn’t it enough
to feel a chill as you rise from a warm
bed, stumble to the bath and with
nimble fingers attend to your body’s
needs, button your shirt, to balance
as you put pants on one leg at a time?
Isn’t it enough
to hear the morning news, the coffee
maker gurgling as you eat your
Wheaties with skim milk, to listen in
the comfort and illuminated safety of
your kitchen as rain rattles the roof?
Isn’t it enough
to inhale the earth’s perfume of wet
dirt, worms, roses and jasmine blooms,
to smell even the faint fumes of the
world’s morning commute as you join
with humanity for the day’s business?
Isn’t it enough
to taste the fresh tender day and
savor the strong bitter brew from
your steaming paper chalice as
you await the train under the shelterwith others huddled like pigeons?
Isn’t it enough
to observe the blur of cinderblock
fortresses adorned with graffiti, the
lonely artifacts of life strewn across
anonymous backyards, to notice the
window cat watching the morning?-- Kathryn Harper
“Cold Rain, Warm Colours” by Fred Rune Rahm, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Another project of mine has been to renovate my life in such a way that I become physically healthier and more fit. Losing weight and regular intense exercise has improved my life so much, particularly my mental health. And goodness knows with the state of U.S. politics, I need to take care of this.
Lately, though, I've noticed I am prioritizing creating daily. It brings such joy and equanimity. It feels as important as eating and sleeping. It puts me in a flow state that enables me to be a decent human being and do good things in the world. But most of all, as I'm getting older, I'm acutely aware that my remaining time is finite and precious. I am going to die. Every day I wake up and put that awareness front and center in my attention, because I want to spend some time every day doing this activity that makes my life rich. When I'm on my deathbed, I want to have no regrets. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I gave myself to life and really engaged.
So every day since January I've been collaging (posted here). And lately I've been making small abstract paintings with watercolor, and converting other painted paper into notecards. It makes me grateful to be alive. And I am grateful to myself that I've made this practice a daily priority.
Surreal
At the turn of the century
it is a long way down
to the mind's I. A treehouse
chronicles my journey to this
lost continent, which requires
the amber spyglass to navigate.
When I arrive I am barely a
shadow of a man. There is
snow falling on cedars; through
the woods I hear the single hound
wailing for her hometown. After
twenty years at Hull House, she
mourns for that bastard out of
Carolina who left her tender
at the bone. I wander through
trees toward her cries and find
her. My journey ends across the
river, past the canal town. Before
crossing over, I ask her for
directions. "I don't know," she
replies. "I'm a stranger here myself."-Kathryn Harper
Another Cento poem. The titles:
There’s Always Looking After
A tree is a guardian angel.
Trees talk to us, they
whisper stories and secrets,
slip us clues to universal mysteries.
Do you see the forest, or the trees?
Sap murmurs up the trunk in spring. Listen.
The apple falls (not far from the tree), its
crisp honey tang for the taking. Notice
how the air changes when you approach
a woods; the fresh, spicy scent of leaves
and needles performing their gift of tonglen.
Handle limbs gently. Despite their
coarseness, trees are benign as babies.
Autumn. My favorite elegy. Red orange yellow
each color a note, a symphony of glorious
death. Gaia’s last hurrah before hibernation.
Glorious death. The nativity of Jesus in
Bethlehem was honored by his parents, wise
shepherds, angels — even animals. But not
one tree except for the remnant serving
as his crib. Look what happened to him.
Whereas Buddha, under a Bodhi tree,
received the gift of enlightenment.
Beware. Trees are destroyers. When touched
by lightning (not an angel), in a rhumba
with the wind, trees release limbs as
geckos lose their tails. They surrender
responsibility, abandon stability,
crush what lies beneath. A shard
of wood thrown by a tornado can kill you.
How many angels are there? They number
more than all the leaves on all the trees
since Big Time began. Earth — head
of a pin on which all trees dance.
Those trees, they krunk in a hot minute.
We just don’t see them. They move so fast.A baby is born. A sapling takes root.
As roots grow, her neurons multiply.
They amputated the tree in our yard
the other day. Am I going to die now?
A tree is a livin’ thin’, wif it’s own
varmintality, expressed by it’s shape,
texture, locashun, seasonal variashuns,
shade/sun alterashun, th’ emoshuns it
invokes in th’ obsarver, th’ memo’ies
it stimulates in th’ obsarver. A tree
lives as long as a hoomin, o’ longer,
an’ faces th’ elements day-in an’
day-out. To sacrifice a tree is a kind
of euthanasia. A tree thet yo’ plant
today will outlive yo’, an’ affeck other
hoomins in th’ future junerashuns… but
will only be thar IF yo’ an’ yer projuny
own th’ lan’ on which th’ tree thrives.
Own SOME lan’, somewhar, an’ put trees
on it, an’ viset an’ watch them grow.
The ancient forests of knowledge
hidden in dusky, musty library stacks
have become my land. My mind, my tree
of knowledge, thrives. It is all I have.
On this moonless night everything
telescopes, clarifies. Brightness erupts
from inky black. The dark night of the soul
is really a form of enlightenment.
I fall on my knees, praying to No God.
The god of no. I sway in the wind, yearning
to be struck, to plummet, to become the abyss
that annihilates, that looks into me. Oh,
the ecstasy of descent! I cry for it.
Mindful One, she thinks too much. She dwells
inside her head, sips the ink of books too
often. For all her lofty talk about meaning
and nature, she lives indoors, estranged.
Reconciliation is possible. The priest
intones, you are dust and to dust you shall
return. So it shall be. A reunion.
Yes! A gorgeous reunion. A gorgeous death.
It shall be as it is, unless it is as it shall
be. Remember, nascentes morimur. The voice is
relentless, paralyzing. Death, inevitable from
the beginning of my existence. My destiny, our
destiny, is to become nothing.
Not so, whisper the trees. Willow weeps over my
rigid despair. A pine tree caresses my hair.
You do not become nothing. You become everything.
The body becomes a corpse. The corpse rots, feeds
maggots and beetles, enriches the soil. A squirrel
foraging embeds a nut, forgets it. The nut germinates.
A sapling grows, slowly. Outside of time. Watching over.
Witnessing the Mystery. There’s always looking after.-Kathryn Harper
I wrote this poem 20 years ago, following this exercise from The Practice of Poetry:
This exercise comes from page 119 of The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell. The goal of the exercise is to write a poem that includes these twenty suggesetions:
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Yearly
Having received the gift of books as I usually do at Christmas, I decided to assemble my to-read pile. The four bottom books were gifts from the most recent Christmas. The other books I "shopped" from my library, because of course I have a collection of unread treasures. These are all non-fiction. I usually rely on serendipity and recommendations for my fiction choices.
The top three books have been in the queue for several years. Many clients have mentioned the two Ruiz books as being helpful, and I'm curious to know more. The other book, Having Everything Right, contains essays on place, particularly the Pacific Northwest. Usually I remember purchasing a book or that it was a gift (and from whom), but this one is a mystery. The Pacific Northwest beckons me as a possible place to live in retirement, whenever that happens. Thus it caught my eye.
The next five books are poetry, three of which were written by the too-soon departed Andrea Gibson, and the last book by Maggie Smith, who is unknown to me, except for the poem "Good Bones".
Women Who Run With the Wolves has been on my shelf for the past decade. I started it when I bought it, but it didn't hold my attention. Ten years ago my mental energy was devoted to mothering an eight-year-old, and it wasn't the right moment. This year my child is graduating high school and headed to college; it's time to explore the Wild Woman and give her more room to live. I found this critique fascinating and have offered a gift link: The Wild Woman Awakens.
The other tome in the stack is a memoir (one of my favored genres): A Walk in the Park: The True Story of A Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon. This book also offers another feature of books I enjoy reading: misadventures, particularly ones related to nature and national parks. Thankfully no one dies in this story, as far as I can tell.
Lastly, I was given three books for art exploration. Last year I began playing with watercolor paint. When paint is of good quality, it is delicious to use. I'm looking forward to exploring and learning its ways.
Do you have a stack of books you look forward to reading this year? Leave a comment if you'd like to share.
