Holidays: I am not done with my changes

Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006... a long, fulfilled life) wrote a poem just for me. At least, I'm convinced of it.

Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes. 

Contemplating this poem, especially today, as I prepare to depart to visit my sons for the holidays, I still get a twinge of anxiety. My family had very strict expectations for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of course, I suppose my family wasn't unique in this regard. But there was definite, unspoken pressure to be present, and things got complicated when I started seriously dating and was in a relationship that spanned the course of more than one year. Of course, to please me, my significant other would happily go to my mom's for the first round of holidays. But when the next year came around, there was pressure from his family--and later, from my in-laws-- to be at their house. My family was less than gracious about this and gave me to understand that I was somehow remiss in my familial duties. I came to associate the coming of the cold November and December weather with the cold shoulder I'd get from my loved ones.

I can't put that guilt trip on my sons. I invite but put no pressure on them to come home for the holidays. As a matter of fact, I look upon traveling to be with them as an adventure.

I suppose I've learned to "live in the layers," as Kunitz wrote, cradled by the richness woven into the fabric of my life by each change that comes.

And it's joyful!

Memoir of the Day

   So delighted that my six-word memoir was chosen as Memoir of the Day today on the Smith magazine Six Word Memoirs site.

   If you've never visited Six Word Memoirs, take a peek. Writing six-word memoirs is fun and it's great to get comments and leave comments on other members' memoirs.

Inspiration

    From the day our little Adina was weened, Simeon and I began to save for her dowry. We were determined to find her a husband from a good family --maybe even one of higher social standing-- a family that would cherish her as we did. So many of the young women of my village, with inadequate dowries or none at all, had been married off to coarse men from uncaring families. How fortunate I was that my parents gave me to Simeon, the gentlest man in all of Galilee, who never raised his voice! Nor did he curse the Lord or me when I gave birth to a girl. He built Adina’s cradle with his own hands. If she cried during the night, he got up, took her into his arms, and hummed her back to sleep. One morning, as I was giving her a bath, he said, “Huldah, Adina must have a dowry.”

   For the next fifteen years my husband and I toiled. Simeon expanded his pottery business, taking orders from surrounding villages. He worked at his wheel from first light until twilight and lost weight sweating at the kiln. Often he would be gone a week or more delivering finished vessels by donkey cart. I took up weaving again, a skill I had learned from my mother and aunts. A cousin gave us an old loom that Simeon was able to repair, and I soon lost count of all the cloaks and blankets I was making. I even invented a specialty item, a seamless tunic woven in a single piece from top to bottom, for which customers were willing to pay a premium price.

   By Adina’s fifteenth birthday, my Simeon and I had managed to accumulate ten drachmas, an enviable dowry for a young woman from a humble village. Then my joy suddenly turned to sorrow. The day after he deposited the last silver coin into the tiny coffer, Simeon collapsed, never to awaken again. The long days at the potter’s wheel and kiln along with the strenuous delivery hauls had taken their toll. Although the heads of local households were already making visits to ask for Adina’s hand, my daughter was inconsolable and had eyes for none of the prospective husbands. Finally, the Lord was pleased to dry our tears and turn our hearts toward the future. Adina expressed a preference for a young man whose parents had shown us great compassion in our grief and whose son promised to love her tenderly.

   The day before the betrothal ceremony, I spread out the ornate tablecloth that I myself had woven expressly for the occasion. Setting the coffer in the place of honor at the center of the table, I opened it and counted the coins. Nine. I counted again. Nine again. Not believing my own eyes, I had Adina count. Still nine. How could this be? We frantically scoured the house, expending a month’s worth of lamp oil ferreting in every corner. How that coin had managed to roll into a soot-laden spot in the far reaches of the fireplace I will never know. Relieved, we polished it and returned it to the box.

   The joy of Adina’s wedding would have been complete but for the absence of my Simeon. Still, our near catastrophe haunted me, and for weeks afterwards I would awaken in a sweat in the middle of the night. My spirit was telling me to find some special way to thank the Lord for saving us from disgrace. So, when disciples of the holy man passed through our town, announcing that he would come to teach and lay hands on the sick, I determined to fall at his feet and proclaim aloud what the Lord had done for us. On the day of the holy man’s arrival, I somehow managed to work my way to the front of the crowd and tell him my story. “I rejoice with you, my daughter!” he said. “But you must not keep this story to yourself. Go, tell your neighbors, that they too may give our Father praise!” I promised to do as he commanded. But first, I sat down on a rock and listened to his sermon. He spoke about a shepherd who had a hundred sheep but left the ninety-nine to go in search of the one that was lost. Next he told a moving story about a wayward son whose father forgave him and even prepared a great feast upon his return home. Then the holy man looked straight at me and smiled as he began: “Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one…”

Author's note: I wrote this little story as an assignment for my amateur writers group. The theme was someone who lost something and then retrieved it, and I instantly thought of Jesus' parable of the woman who found the lost coin. I'd like to acknowledge Laura Hammel of the Sisters of St. Clare over at the Global Sisters Report: https://www.globalsistersreport.org/column/spirituality/lost-coin-lesson-compassion-42186.