le chevauchement

Well, that last post didn't work so well. I didn't know that videos don't come through in email notifications. Readers have to click on the blue post title which is linked to the blog if they want to view/listen to a YouTube video. Good to know. Crappy to happen.

My first blog post in almost a year, and it was an email flop. Oh, well. The song is MY happy song. Everyone has their own.

***

Some mornings, I read a poem by a contemporary poet, then steal a phrase that I like and write my own poem from that prompt (I only do this some mornings, because I lack discipline, and different days ask for different activities). I noticed that one writer wrote a few lines with words that ended a thought, but also began one. I have no idea if this is a "thing," if there is a name for this style of writing. I'd call it le chevauchement (the overlap). You'll see in the writing below, thoughts overlap. Kind of like how my brain works.


Late Summer Garden

The summer’s been quirky, 
and we found ourselves on the computer too 
much heat and not enough rain to keep the lawn green
beans have been plentiful, though, and kale grows
like weeds must be pulled around the roses weekly 
so the murdering bindweed won’t strangle them. Each 
year, I say next year will be more colorful
flowers would look nice mixed with the daisies. 
We’ll feed the grass in 
the fall I could plant bulbs if I remember 
this miracle growing right before my 
eyes keep focusing on what needs to be done 
and forgetting to enjoy even the perfect globe 
of dandelion seeds blowing the mind with happiness.

Carol Barrow
September, 2019

The Gift

When I was about nineteen, I met a young man, probably at a dance club, and we went on an afternoon date in the mountains. I don't remember the man's name, but I can see him in my mind, and I can also remember riding in his little green Triumph with the top down, going down a highway that, at that time, had very little traffic. The highway was so quiet, that when the man's hat blew off, he had all the time in the world to put his car into reverse, open the door, and pick the hat up off the road.

As we drove down from the mountains, the wind and this song created a wild dance of my hair and heart:




Not long after that date, the man would write me love letters. I was busy looking in a different direction. But I am so grateful for that memory. Especially for the song. When it comes to mind, which only happens every few years, I blast it from the speakers and dance wildly like my hair did that day.

What song will you drop into someone's life today?

A Lovely Thanksgiving

I was telling a friend that every morning when I wake up, before I do anything else, I spend some time thinking of things for which I'm grateful. The first thing I think of is always My Bed. Next, I'm grateful for my warm blankets, then it's my pillow. There isn't much that's better than my bed and warm covers, especially when it's time to crawl out of them into the cold morning air. That's when they become magnetic, trying to persuade me to stay just a bit longer, then another bit longer.

I do move on to other gratitudes that could be considered to have more substance, though I'm not sure that judgment is accurate.

In response to the description of my morning gratitude, my friend offered me this:

Every day, choose a letter of the alphabet, and throughout the day find things that begin with that letter and be grateful for them. 

Day one, I chose J. J was a challenging letter for me. But I saw Juniper trees and remembered making a happy face out of Juniper berries during my solo time while on wilderness quest years ago. I was grateful for that experience, and the memory of it gave me a smile. I also found gratitude for the Junctions of streets where I walk my dog each day; particularly the Junction that can be scary with cars whipping around the curve. That Junction wakes me up if I happen to to have been lulled into a daydream. 

In the evening while I was pedaling my arm bike, I looked around the room for things that began with J. Not even one book on my bookshelf had a J in the title. Oh! But I was using my arm bike for my shoulder JOINT! The Joint that has hurt so much and limited my movement so I can't even reach over to wash my other armpit. I love Joints, even ones that are limiting. Can you imagine a life with no Joints? 

Today my Letter is L. Ah. See that? Letter. I'm grateful for Letters. Letters that make up words that open the world for us in so many ways, allowing us to express, coming together to form books about Lives and Loves we might have not known without them. Oh, and the other kind of Letter! Something almost archaic now, but who doesn't love to read a handwritten Letter? (Unless the handwriting is mine and pretty much undecipherable...)

As I bake and cook and clean and prepare for family to come over for Thanksgiving dinner tonight, I especially want to pay attention to the L word Love in all the forms it shows itself. Love between humans, the Love it takes to get up early on a holiday in order to ensure the turkey is thawed and cooked just right, Love splashed all over the sky as a pink and purple sunrise, the Love that is shown by our Listening to each other. The Love that is everywhere in Life. Unlike my J day, I could spend this whole day finding L everywhere, because Love is everywhere, showing up in so many ways.

As I get ready to click on the Publish button, I am thinking of the few readers of this blog, people I know and Love. This day, and always, I hope that Love shows itself to you in each and every moment.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Love

Carol

As Dharma and I walk together

not too far from home,

I hear the voice of a hawk.

It stands out against 

the rumbles of the city,

and the sound wakes me up.

I then search the sky and trees

for the high I know will come

as the raptor flies us free

from the gravity of life.

Carol Barrow

November, 2018

Because

Love.
Not for a reason,
or to fulfill
someone else's
deserving.
Love,
because
love
is
what
you
are

.

I Wasn’t Fat; I Just Hated Myself

Because of something I had said the other night, my friend asked if I had ever thought I was fat. I answered, “No,” but then I remembered that I did think I was fat when I was eighteen years old, recently out of high school, with a badly broken heart.

Shortly after graduation, my boyfriend of two years had suddenly left me. I felt like I was standing alone out in a desert, winds of self-hatred, sadness, and failure pelting me till I curled up into a protective ball of numbness.

I weighed myself to see if I still existed, and I noticed the scale read 108 pounds. Always being thin enough that people felt a need to comment, 108 sounded like too much, so I began to live on a small handful of cereal, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, and a few saltines each day. When I saw 103 pounds on the dial of my parents' old scale, I began to feel a little more in control of my life.

What I didn't tell my friend the other night was that after losing those five pounds, things only got worse. Back then, a couple of girlfriends and I met a man while hanging out at Cheesman Park down in Denver. He was inviting people to a meeting where participants talked about God. Having little going on, and being the spiritual seeker I was, I bit the bait and started attending Wednesday night meetings, even driving the hour and a half it took to get there from the town I lived in while going to college.

I didn't know it at the time, but I was finding my way into a cult.

I ended up dropping out of school in order to be with the group full-time, and shortly after that a small number of us were sent to another state. There, I had at least a dozen companions who were doing the same meditations and following the same long list of rules as I was. We were a sick family, stressed by ridiculous exercises to make us more disciplined, while the leader used us to make himself rich.

I started eating too much. The needle jumped to 133.

One day the cult leader ordered several women to lose specific amounts of weight, while letting me know I should just "lose a few pounds." We were living under penalty of being cast out, of having to go back to living with "world people" who would suffer the anguish of the Last Days, and I didn't even know whether the loss of two pounds or ten would save me from all of that! 

I tried an all-protein diet for ten days. I ate too much. I fasted. I ate cartons of ice cream. 108. 130. 110. 125.

I medicated with food, eating a whole box of Triscuits or a package of cookies in one sitting. After throwing away the empty box, I would buy a milkshake and drink it dry. This was my dessert ritual after eating a big dinner.

My pain came from much more than my big, bloated belly, but I only had the means to relieve the physical symptoms. I failed at self-induced throwing up, but I was a master at purging through the over-use of enemas and laxatives. After each cleanse, I would feel a lightness, like I was walking out of a sort of prison and into the huge sky of freedom. I would swear that I never wanted to be a prisoner of my bingeing again, and I would vow to stop over-eating.

The last time must have come two years after joining the cult, right before I popped a couple of bleeding ulcers that put me in the hospital.

In the hospital, I couldn't binge and purge. I couldn't do the required meditations or follow the rules of the cult. That was all fine. More than fine. When I left the hospital, I also left the cult. Two bleeding ulcers and a few hospital stays began the healing I still work with today.

The other night, if I had thought about it a little longer, I would have told my friend that, honestly, I never thought I was fat. But the dark thoughts of self-hatred and some horrendous fear of trying to live in this world used to warp my view of food and life. 

Self-hatred and fear continue to be shadows over my left shoulder, but at the same time, right in front of me, I see the sun rise, I feel air filling my lungs, and I know love is so much bigger and truer than the thoughts that try to undermine the beauty of this world.


Carol Barrow
October, 2018