A New Look at Freedom

 

Freedom is something you've got to keep fighting for every day.

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert, by Bob the Drag Queen, pg. 218. 

Last week I walked into Lakes Regional Library and spotted a book on the display I had seen on GoodReads and had determined that I wasn't interested. But then somehow, seeing the book right there in front of me, I felt this jolt: I had to read it. I picked it up, perused a bit, determined it was short enough and read easy enough I could probably read it all in one day.

And that is what I did with Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen.

Life has taken a turn since reading this book, which focused heavily on the idea of freedom: how you get it, what it really means, and how you can't be free unless you free others. It does this by having Harriet Tubman come back to our world because she wants to make a hip-hop album to tell her story. This is during a time when a lot of famous people are returning. It was an interesting premise, and one I bought into immediately. I mean, how cool is that?

I learned more about Harriet Tubman. It is pretty amazing how she found her freedom, then kept going back to get others, risking losing her freedom over and over again. Would I have done that? Seriously doubt it.

*

As usual, this event doesn't stand alone. Recently I had revisited a journal I kept in the summer of 2023 when I was doing a series of writing prompts by Natalie Goldberg. One was "write a farewell letter."  I found I had written to a colleague of mine I had worked closely with, but then years later she left our school. It was a good reflection of what we had gone through together teaching intensive readers.

This caused me to think I could start a notebook of farewell letters. So I did. I thought it would be a once in a while thing. Instead, every day I find something I want to say farewell to. And very quickly I found I also wanted to write welcome letters.

For clarification, here are the some of the opening salutation:

Dear Disorganized Pantry...

Dear Kind People at Publix...

Dear Thoughts Anything Could Have Been Done Differently...

Today I wrote a welcome letter.

I'm doing this for freedom's sake. I've had time to reflect on how the littlest thing can throw us off track, can trap us, make us feel unfree. This happens so much, we actually don't notice.

My farewell letters are about noticing. What do I need to let go of in this moment, in order to move freely through my day? Or in the case of the pantry, what is a new vision of what my surroundings could be? It helped me take control and move through the project. 

And thoughts! It is easy to fall back into thinking about the past and what could be changed...as if.  The letter helped set me straight on that one. It returned me to the perfection and Divine Order in all things.

My welcome letters are also about noticing, but it is more outwardly focused. What am I seeing that matters? This started when I went to Publix and witnessed several kind moments. 

Today it came after I read an essay by a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Junot Diaz, and his tribute to Toni Morrison and her book Beloved. It got me thinking about published writers, and how much they have to offer us. I've been reading a book I never finished called Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process. I've recently read terrific essays by Sherman Alexie, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Stephen King. Reading one a day is a welcoming in of inspiration, so I can click back into the creative life I slipped out of with vacations and home improvement projects.

So today I start a slightly different kind of blog post. When I write a letter I want to share, I will be sharing it here as my creative piece. Today it is a welcome (and gratitude) letter to published writers. Where would be without them?  Unimaginable!!!

Outside Gramercy Books, Bexley Ohio

Dear Published Writers,

You are always there when I need a jolt of inspiration. You give rise to the writer in me. You help me get lost in the worlds you create or the facts you pull together into a beautiful thesis that changes my perception of the world.

I will add a huge thank you to all involved in the book industry: from the agents and editors, the manufacturers, the artists, and the booksellers. Without all of you, there would be no books for us to read.

My art and craft has always been writing. Let me open back up to that being an important part of my life, one in which I spend my precious energy and time.

Love and Peace,

Helen 🌻

A Youthful Dream That Will Never Die

 We'll be singing "All You Need is Love"

Someday it's gonna be enough

So much better than it ever was

Never gonna give up

On the summer of love

--Molly Tuttle/Ketch Secor--

I have followed Molly Tuttle since she first arrived on the scene. It seems she has grown from an introverted guitar virtuoso to a young woman (she's 32) who has found herself and her place in the world. And yes, she still plays a mean guitar.

Her recent album is solo, called So Long Little Miss Sunshine. It was released Friday, and I've been listening to it since. One song caught my attention immediately, one called "Summer of Love."

I was an avid music follower by the time the Summer of Love came to America in 1967. I was fresh out of 6th grade, impressionable to what was happening in the world and in music. The mantra the Beatles gave us "All You Need is Love" still resonates in my soul. Molly is from California and had hip parents who took her to bluegrass festivals and steeped her in popular culture. She has written songs about the influence of California on her personality and her music. The new album has a strong California feel to it, and the song "Summer of Love" even picks up a riff from The Beach Boys "Good Vibrations."

I am now 70 years old, and the Summer of Love is still with me. I still believe in the message of Love -- and even Flower Power, frankly --and I have to accept it will never go away. I do believe someday we will realize Love is enough. To me, it's the message of Jesus, Buddha, and every other spiritual teacher.

 Compassion is love. Grace is love. Sacrifice is love. Kindness is love. Love is love.

Who can deny that if we all gave a little more love, the compounding effect would be amazing?

Summer is a time to rest and remember the stories

Of our youth that feed us as the decades go on. For me its

Love being the answer to every question.

Nothing is Lost

 

Everything changes; nothing is lost.

--Martha W. Hickman-

Yesterday the tile in my kitchen was demolished. I can remember the moment Jim and I chose this particular tile, with the look of fossilized shells and coral. For a long time, I thought it was one of the best things about our home.

That was twenty years ago, and this tile being in the kitchen, was subject to a lot of abuse. It is time to replace it. I have a beautiful wood plank tile being installed tomorrow, which will be a wonderful change.

The quote above connects to this tile situation. I see the tiles themselves appear to be gone, but actually they have just taken another form -- chunks and dust. Lots and lots of dust. And when those chunks and the dust get washed away, they will go back to the earth where they started.

I can see this wonderful cycle and I appreciate being part of it. Some days, we just feel it more than others, right? The most unexpected thing can bring us back to the core.

The heart of it all remains:

Everything changes. Nothing is lost.

The sky looked like this on Monday morning

when I took my walk around 7 a.m.

The colors were so brilliant as to stun

The moon, too

But clouds never stay the same for long.

Likewise, the moon will keep phasing down

All we can do is capture the moments

the memories

of doing things like 

creating a home

taking a walk

washing away the dust.

The simple truth is one we all live.

Everything is part of the whole.

And it is all One.

Refuge in Change

My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn

to love death then I can begin to find refuge in change.

-Terry Tempest Williams-

 Today I did a Gesalt therapy on one of my dreams which seemed all over the place. My dream featured my maternal grandmother, a creative but not a terribly approachable person. In my dream we found out she was still alive. (Keep in mind, she died in her 70s in 1975). We all went to see her, but she wasn't talking to us and we were afraid to talk to her. She had not died, but her creative life had gone on, as she sat in the corner ignoring us, caught up in some kind of craftwork she was doing. Going through the process of unpacking this dream, I was give a very pointed message: Get back to your creative life. It is waiting for you.

I am writing this post without notes or pre-thought. I have not planned what I am saying. What I have discovered is that I've made myself busy with travel and home improvement and it has sapped a lot of time and energy that I previously reserved for writing.

But even that isn't the whole truth. When I write I acknowledge change. And slowly I have allowed the changes to happen without forming them into thoughts. I mean, I do my journaling. That is different, however, than creating something that I am going to share publicly, something I have formed from making connections in my creative mind. The focus on inspiration I have found. Lessons I've learned. I've let a long time and a lot of changes go by without setting those thoughts down. And it is kind of crazy because the main way I got through a lot of 2024 was in that act of writing.

I looked for a quote to kick me off here, and the Terry Tempest Williams spoke loudest. And it seems one of the dots that connects me to what I want to say here. I have found a refuge in love -- feeling it, extending it, praying for it. I look at the world and I see so many in pain and despair. I firmly believe love is the answer to any question. Always. I learned that when the Beatles sang it, and I've never given up on it. 

The last year has made love more visceral for me. I feel it stronger, along with compassion and kindness. I like to think I've always been that way, but I know it isn't true. In fact, sometimes I wondered if I was defective in that department. I used to try to "get there," but it took a couple of near death experiences and watching my husband die to put me where I find myself now. 

The capacity to love has provided a refuge that soothes me, reminds me, and opens me to the moment I'm in. That is the only place love resides, and where fear of death cannot.

 It's okay to be a creative person, but

 being loving should supersede it, so

I have put seeing family and friends

and loving my home with necessary changes;

if I haven't been as creative as I'd like

it is fine because I continue to reach out,

love, be in the life of my friends, 

grieve the loss of my dear Jim

and live my life knowing

that all the dots eventually connect

in a weird, wonderful, and colorful way,

and I'm all about that type of refuge,

one that exists because of the impermanence of all things.

Returning, At Last

 

When you are not writing, you are a writer, too.

-Natalie Goldberg-

I haven't posted on here in three months, and it was starting to wear on me. Oh, I had excuses. The month of May was very busy, and then I traveled in June and July. I had major work done hurricane-proofing my house. I even sometimes wrote something in my journal in the morning and said I would post it, but somehow never did.

In the past couple of weeks it started to bother me. Why aren't I writing? Why don't I make time? Why am I not giving attention to something I love so much?

I spent time really delving into it and came to a strange conclusion: I no longer feel like I'm seeing the world as a writer. In the past, depending on what was happening, something inside me would say WRITE IT. And I would. Or I would commit myself to a project of some sort, and find myself following through in many (not all) cases. I think the feeling I wasn't looking at the world with writer's eyes bothered me more than anything else. My conclusion: I NEED SANIBEL ISLAND WRITERS CONFERENCE. Honestly, those days on the island used to feed me for an entire year. And now it's been longer than I dare to think, and there has been nothing available like it to take its place.

Perhaps I should read back through a lot of my writing, get inspiration that way? Wow, cool idea, but time-consuming. I never made any kind of clear decision on proceeding on that. I guess I just figured that I would be led back to it, gently prodded in that direction, when the time was right.

And that is what has happened.

It began a few days after my recognition of the problem and the frustration I felt. I was getting ready for bed when my niece Cheryl, a writer in Ohio, sent a text about a free week long writers conference in Cleveland this September. It has a virtual component, and that is why she thought of me. The group putting it on is called Inkubator, and I've signed up now for three virtual workshops.

Okay...that was number one in the "gently prodding" direction. But not enough to get me here.

Then I wandered into Barnes and Noble on a Saturday after attending a peaceful protest. There I met a fisherman and writer who was autographing his book A Flicker in the Water. I spoke with him a bit, and even told him, hey, I've been trying to get back to writing. Maybe your book will inspire me.

That was number two.

Then today my friend Debbie texted me. She has been missing me as her buddy teacher at Cypress Middle, and told me that the team was talking about teaching more poetry. They all agreed I should come in and teach a few sessions. 

That was IT. I felt this flame light up inside me, much like the flame on the gas stove in my parents' house. Turn the dial and whoosh, there was the blue flame flickering strong in front of you. Seriously. Exactly like that.

And I knew today was the day to return to howling noiselessly here. 

In her book on writing, Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg says:

I tell my students you can't plant a grass seed and then stick your finger in the seed 

and yank out a blade of grass. It doesn't work like that. We have to be patient 

to let the blade of grass grow. It takes many elements: sun, cloud, earth, insects, seed. 

This is true in writing, too.

So raise a glass to the writers, whether they are writing or not.

Hooray for nieces, or any family member, who sends a text at the exact right moment.

Let's celebrate everyone who gets their books in print and 

puts themselves on the line to market it.

Hooray for teachers and friends who believe in the power of poetry.

Let's cheer allowing things to happen in their own time.

Here is to Divine Order.

Here is to faith,

Belief,

And the Joy that follows.

💓💓💓