"Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside sombody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you, too."
-----Frederick Buechner

I'm alright, Chickabee.....

It's been too late getting home. And you know how I am about calling late. Are you alright, too? The weekend's coming. Then I can hear your voice and tell you about my week and hear all about yours. It's amazing how just the talking across a long distance wire can close the miles between me on the Eastern Shore and you, there in the beautiful mountains.

This working for a living is a hard road sometimes, ain't it?! And my mind is so full that I can't hardly slow it down to sleep. You know how I can get when I get a thing or a song or a person in (on) my mind. But don't worry about me, my friend. If there was anything needin' worryin' over, you'd be the first to know.

Love,
the little thunderstorm

My Own Private Obsession

In the dazzling dance of my own mind
You have become my own private obsession.
Sometimes tiny and fragile, like a bird
Caught inside the small screened porch.
I move from corner to corner
Trying not to frighten
Wanting to set you free
To see you soar up and out of sight
To hear you singing with joy and relief.
Sometimes you are as beautiful as a spring dawn
New and full of hope eternal, hope renewed
Asking only for eyes to gaze at you
Awe-struck and silent.
I gaze and I gaze and you are
More beautiful the longer I stare at the turns
of your hills and valleys,
your Life-worn face.
Sometimes you are the fleeting glimpse,
The corner-of-the-eye,
The slight of hand.
Here then gone then back again.
I don't know what to do with you.
I hide you inside the arch of my back,
The catch of my breath,
Or the ache of my skin.
You, my own quiet obsession,
My stranger, my mystery.
My lover once-removed.
Distant cousin to loneliness.
Obsessed as the obsessor.
Obsessed like me.

I send this to you (no! not him! no! not her!!You!)

"Hope is the thing with feathers-- That perches in the soul-- And sings the tune without the words-- And never stops--at all."
-----Emily Dickenson

Age.......

"Age only matters if you're a cheese." Helen Hayes

Or a whine. Oh, sorry, I mean WINE.

I was watching one of the docs here at the big house (the hospital) reading a stock analysis on the computer in the call room. He was right up, nose-to-nose with the computer. He, literally, almost had his forehead pressed against the computer glass. And I laughed and told him to put on his glasses! This lead to a brief discussion about the ways that age affects us. The most obvious and common being in the eyes. And around the eyes, too!

I had just had a very similiar discussion with one of the nurses because I was trying to read something in small print and just couldn't do it! I was saying the same thing to myself that I said to the doc - wear your glasses! I mean, for goodness sake, just put the things on! I don't wear my glasses like I ought to. They drive me crazy. And I'm constantly taking them off, putting them on, taking them off. And I refuse!!!! absolutely refuse!!! to wear one of those chains around my neck! We started talking about the things that change with age. We talked about failing eyesight and aching hips and knees; short-term memory loss and diminished stamina; decreasing appetite but increasing weight (especially around the middle); less tolerance to hot and cold; different patterns of sleeping and dreaming. It all starts to change - and just when you finally have gotten used to it!

But there are other things that come with age in which I'm finding great comfort and some peacefulness. I actually like the gray hair. I don't have much yet, and maybe it'll be different if I start to go completely white - but I like each one I have already. I feel like I've earned them - like I could name each one after a trial or tribulation, a lost love, a broken friendship, a fight with a brother or sister or parent or child, a long night of worry, or a morning of hope. I think there is wisdom coming to me now, in little bits. There are things that I know I've learned, mistakes that I won't make again. For me, there is great comfort in that. I feel less need as time goes on. Less need. What a gift! Less need.

I am sometimes taken aback by the wrinkles around my eyes and around my mouth. Between my eyebrows, too! But I see the traces of many smiles, many moments filled with laughter, moments of deep concentration, and moments filled with tears. My friend Cindy's mom Lilian has one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen - lined with the years of her life, surrounded by a halo of pure white hair. I love her face. I like my own wrinkles, even when they startle me, because they tell my story, outright.

The greatest thing about this aging stuff, though, has been the way it makes me appreciate so many things in my life. The older I get, the more grateful I become. The older I get, the more beauty I see in this world. Things become more dear, because, I think, the realization starts to sink in that nothing is forever. That we are all just tiny, simple snippets of time and energy in a complex world that has gone on for longer than our minds can understand. And will go on when we are gone from here. Life becomes so precious. Love becomes so tender, so cherished. I feel such a deep and profound gratitude for the love that weaves through my life - my parents, my children, my sisters and brothers, my wonderful friends who have saved my life. And the love that flows through the music in my life - my own personal soundtrack, constant, pure, sung and unsung, heard and unheard.

I think that I will be a fine wine. That I will continue to mellow with age and sweeten with time.

Plus I like, so much more, to think of myself as a beautiful golden chardonnay or a deep purple merlot than a hunk of bleu!! Don't you?

Peace peace and more peace.

Placed on my heart............

I have heard people say before, "God placed you on my heart." I never really understood that before. But now I understand it clearly because it has happened to me. God has placed you on my heart. And you are constant in my thoughts. I think about you almost without stopping, like I do my own children or my parents or my closest friends.

But in a different way. I think about you and I think about the sadness that surrounds you. I see it in your countenance and I hear it, just the slightest tinge, in your voice. And I want to wrap my heart around it and ease it for you, or just take it and carry it for you.

I don't even know you well at all. I know almost nothing about you. You are a stranger in my heart, and yet God has placed you there for a reason. I don't even know what to do with these feelings. How do I reach out to someone who is a stranger? How do I cross the gap, continuing to appear normal and like I know what I am doing when I don't have the slightest idea what I am doing? How do I know what I can do to offer you compassion, comfort, love?

I know now that God has done this to me before - I just didn't realize it. There have been women I've seen in my practice, who I've grown especially close to, who stayed on my mind, who I worried about and thought about all the time and wanted to give them all the love that I can muster - all the love that a stranger can offer to another. It is a strange thing. And there have been friends of my children with whom I've wanted to do that same thing - take them in, hold them close, love them without ceasing, ease some of the sadness that circles around them like a halo, an aura, a moat.

Is it my own sadness that connects with yours? Are we kindred spirits? Does that part of me recognize that part of you?

I don't know the answer. I only know that God has placed you on my heart. I see your face whenever I close my eyes. I look for you everywhere I go, just to have the chance to offer you a smile. I lie awake in the night and wonder what I am supposed to do, if anything.

This morning, a small answer came to me as I sipped coffee in the early morning chill - I need to pray. And so I did. Paul told us to pray without ceasing. Perhaps that is a way to love without ceasing. Perhaps that is a way to love. I pray for you.

I send a wish to you - through magic and spirit - that you might know that there is a person here in this world, a stranger, who prays for you, and loves you without understanding why, it is just there. And it asks nothing in return, there is nothing you need to do. It just is.

Peace.

Dear Eliza.....

I am sending you this medal, dear Eliza.

They have cited me for bravery in the field.

And, oh I so believed I fight for freedom

I carried my truth like a shield.

But I've seen my brothers die, Eliza,

By hands that held our babes before the war

And I hear their mothers cry as I lay sleeping

And I don't want this medal anymore.

Can you hear the sound, Eliza?

Of the sad goose leading winter home.

I button up my coat and I hang my head down low

With the greatest kind of sorrow I have known.

I am sending you my heart, dear Eliza.

It's as broken as the man that holds it in.

And, though I make it home to your sweet love,

I don't think I'll be using it again.

There is so much I have lost, my own Eliza.

I've forgotten all the beauty in your sweet face.

Will we ever know the cost that we are paying

When we forget the ways of mercy and Heaven's grace?

Can you hear the sound, Eliza?

Of the mourning dove crying in the dawn.

There is nothing I believe but that freedom is not free

And there will not be a war that can be won.

There is nothing I believe but that freedom is not free

And there will not be a war that can be won.

-----Yours truly, Dear Eliza

I've just recently gotten this song recorded in the studio. It'll be on my next CD which, hopefully, will be out by the time autumn rolls around again.

Peace.