Virtual Choir 4: Bliss

I am greatly interested in the way creativity prompts and inspires further creative expression. I think we need more of that. Virtual Choir 3 and 4 (and Eric Whitacre, of course) inspired many poems for me. See links below for previous VC related posts.

In the last year I have lost five people in my immediate circle, including my Mom, whom I was very close to, and my youngest brother. In addition, my dear youngest sister is struggling with stage 4 breast cancer. (Now all four of us girls in my family have had cancer.) The year before both my in-laws died. So I am deeply grieving, trying to work through and process and let go and remember and listen to my inner voice and still take care of my health. For me, singing in VC 4: Bliss was filled with challenges and also huge gifts.

I was driving and began thinking about the many reasons I felt so compelled to sing in Virtual Choir 4 and the phrase “5 minute respite” came to mind. Since I am a poet I have a notebook in the car. I pulled over and followed that thought. The poem below is the result. (5 minutes refers to the approximate time it takes to sing the choir part of VC 4: Bliss once through.)

6/10/13

5 Minute Respite
(VC 4: Bliss)

To sing perchance to dream
when anything is possible
where irretrievable losses
can be restored and
hope refreshed

Melding what is best in each
welding strength to strength
assembled from
determined persistence
to overcome any barriers

Envisioned by the one
encouraged by the team
the whole more
strongly beautiful and real
than any sticky web

of pervasive grief.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2013

Note: Definition of respite (pronounced ‘respit) in the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary: 1) a period of temporary delay, 2) an interval of rest or relief.

Other Virtual Choir (and Eric Whitacre) posts and poems:
https://www.fullblooming.com/inspiration-and-creation
https://www.fullblooming.com/a-dream-about-eric-whitacre
https://www.fullblooming.com/more-poems-inspired-by-virtual-choir-3-water-night
https://www.fullblooming.com/being-more-fully-yourself

More VC poems to come. What has inspired you lately? What did you do about it?

Anniversary

Today is the 39^th anniversary of our wedding. It was 1974 and we were 22 years old. I had just graduated from the University of Michigan three weeks before and Stephen had just finished his first year law school final exams one week before. It was a Saturday of Memorial weekend, just like today. That night we stayed at a hotel (the Dearborn Inn) for the first time in my life–a very mini honeymoon. And then we moved our stuff the next day into married student housing in Ann Arbor. In thinking back a few days ago, I wrote this poem which I read to Stephen this morning at the kitchen table. We had a lovely, low-key day being together. Happy anniversary one more time before midnight, Stephen!

5/23/13

Nearing Anniversary
(For STM)

I might tell you
what I remember
from 40 years ago

and though you were there
and we were simpatico
your memories may not be

even recognizable to me,
either morphed over time,
put through that gauze sieve

we each have or
true from your point of view
but maybe the image

has blurred or completely erased
and what mattered to me
enough to file away

just vanished from your life story.
Or we each can remember bits
and piece together say, that date the first summer

when we were supposed to go to a horse show
but ended up making out on the beach
and you remember the color and make of the borrowed car

or where we went for dinner after
and both of us recall the unexpectedly cold wind
blowing off the lake, the threat of rain

and I remember the insistence of your lips on mine
as we made our tent under the sandy blanket
and my passionate body awakened for the first time

like an iron slowing heating up to red hot
not an incandescent bulb you could turn on or off,
the abandon of desire almost scaring me with intensity.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2013

What are your stories about long-time relationships? How reliable is memory? How can you tell?

Still there! Seyfried Jewelry in Ann Arbor where we got our wedding bands.

Awaiting Further Instructions

I really resonated with an April 17, 2013 Facebook post by Lissa Rankin, MD, author of the new book, Mind over Medicine: Scientific Proof that You Can Heal Yourself. Here is the post in entirety (used with permission):

“What if confusion, uncertainty, indecision, and lack of clarity didn’t paralyze you or throw you into fits of anxiety and impatience? What if you could just make peace with the fact that, sometimes, there’s nothing to do. It’s time to simply await further instructions and trust that the way will be shown to us when the timing is right.

What if there was no judgment around times when the future is fuzzy? What if you’re not flaky or clueless or lacking insight or wrong when you’re not sure what’s next? What if it’s just part of the process, and our only job during these times is to be mindful, pay attention to Signs from the Universe, listen clearly for further instructions, and then trust the instructions when they come so we can be brave enough to take action when the call comes?

Try this prayer: “If I’m meant to do something, please make the action clear. If I’m meant to wait, please grant me peace.”

When I read this I felt calmer during a confused, “fuzzy” time. I was more able to be still, rest, remember to breathe, and await further instructions. Two poems came to mind to help me.

This Is the Moment I Have

not tomorrow
with its joy or sorrow.

This is the moment—
when I floss my teeth,
and stand on two strong legs,

smiling in the mirror
at a face topped by hair.
This moment of easy breathing

with husband and children
deeply sleeping nearby.
This moment with fresh, cool

spring air blowing in my window
from a dark, rich night capped by stars.
This is the moment I have,

not next week or next month,
however much time and energy
I spend planning them.

How often am I actually
here…
in this only moment I have?

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 1997

From As Easy as Breathing
and my CD, Full Blooming

Illinois Rest Stop Copyright 2006 MDMikus

Still You Know

For Karen

When you’re driving
down a road
wrapped in deepest fog

still you know
you trust
the road is there.

Whether you’ve gone down
this road a million times
or just one,

though you can’t see
beyond your nose,
still you know the road is there.

You may slow,
you may be cautious
and cling to the center stripe,

still you head
where you are going,
still you trust.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 1998

From As Easy as Breathing

This is not the same as being in denial or avoidance. This is the natural cycle of replenishment and reevaluation necessary to wielding our true creative power in the world. I like this idea of awaiting further instructions…in whatever form they may come to me.

What do you do when your life seems stalled? Spin your wheels or settle into it? Let germinate or rush off to be doing something…anything to keep moving?

Moving

This Space of Grace blog is moving soon to a new home, integrated into my newly designed website, FullBlooming.com. All the same posts will be there in the archives and I will be writing more than ever. I am grateful to blogger for this time of connection (since 2009) and I trust I will see you all (and hear from you too) at the new location. You will be automatically transferred, you won’t miss anything so no worries. Thank you to all my readers and to those whose comments encouraged me to keep writing.

Recently I have been researching family history online. Many reasons why this is the time to do it. Questions to answer like: is what I remember actually true? Here is a new poem:

Peony by the Driveway, 2012 Copyright MDMikus

2/8/13

Photo Albums

My mother, one year maybe in the ‘70’s,
took the time to gather all the family photos
and for each of her 7 children made a life story

with bits of baby hair, maybe a curl from the first haircut,
and the tiny beaded wristlet from the maternity hospital
with DUBAY and a blue medal of the Blessed Mother.

Baby pics, posed and natural,
some of us looking so similar, had to tell who was who
by the year on the back or other cues.

And inside the front cover an envelope of negatives
was taped to later make some prints.
In mine, a copy of an old letter from my Grandma Schulte

with news to reassure her daughter, my Mom,
that my brother and I were alright staying with her.
She wrote our daily schedule including snacks and naps,

a newsy description of our interests,
her frequent concern for my hair to stay out of my eyes—
the solution: to give me a permanent.

The love X 7 poured into each album,
her lasting gift, I opened today
and found how close or far off was memory,

how radiantly beautiful
was my mother.

New Beginnings

2011 LGNB 95 smaller front coverD ebook for Smashwords-2 Just had a flash to offer my book, Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey, for FREE for today only, the last day of Read an E-Book Week. Enter coupon code RW100 upon checkout.

When I was editing Letting Go and New Beginnings, I had the idea for my Mom to proof read it. She was struggling with a form of dementia from repeated small strokes and I thought this might help her. And it would help me to have fresh eyes read the pages. As a side benefit it caused me to think back to when she let me go, the first of her seven children to head to college.

On the day my parents dropped me off at the dorm, I was 18 and eager for them to leave and to get on with my new life. With six other kids at home I did not really consider what all this meant to my Dad and Mom, the hole I might leave. Working on the book with my Mom opened a conversation about her feelings when I left home forty years before, giving me new insights.

Here is another poem from Letting Go and New Beginnings: A Mother’s Poetic Journey

1/11/06

Seasoned Woman

Seasoned like a succulent feast
with spices both wild and ordinary,
used in unusual, unexpected combinations,
rich, complex, sweet, sour, simple, bitter-bite,
surprising, challenging the senses, satisfying.

And seasoned like wood now ready for good use,
waiting to be crafted into
something of great beauty and value,
an exquisite table polished to mirror sheen,
a hand-carved boat lovingly left deliberately rough,
a delicate or sturdy figurine shaped
from an almost remembered dream.

And seasoned by the flow of days,
some hard beyond bearing:
what doesn’t break you
makes you stronger.

Young, green, soft-wood no good for burning,
seasoned hardwood ready for flame.

I also read this poem on my CD, Full Blooming: Selections from a Poetic Journal.

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