This short, powerful sentence took my breath away. Complicated, heartbreaking life, beautifully expressed, Missie. Thank you. It reminded me of the famous six word short story supposedly written by Hemingway. "For sale: baby shoes; never worn."
Oh thank you for sharing this Jeffrey. God. That you go from your mother's death to the landscape and sun and river and then back to you, and then back to the river locates me into the story so powerfully. Thank you for sharing this.
Thanks for your thoughtful reaction to my post and those of others, Pádraig. And thank you for your podcast, your book (well-thumbed, already!), and this community of readers and writers you are helping to build. Such a gift.
As a therapist, I sit with around 8 patients per day. So often, I find myself holding back a comment or question in order to allow the patient to speak and hear his or her own words. Sometimes, it allows me to wait long enough to hear what I need to hear. What I need to understand better. Time in my office, allows people a safe space to find important words and to know that they are heard.
Thanks for sharing that Jennifer. What a generous art of listening therapy provides - letting the person hear themselves, and you hearing them hearing themselves. That bearing witness is an art of silence and time and restraint. Thank you.
This kind of training must serve you well through all your days, serve you and those you come in contact with. I'm curious: do you struggle with authentic, in-the-moment responses? That is, do you sometimes miss the clash of wrongness? The older I grow, the more I refine (often through writing) my initial response, trying to avoid wrongness. Sometimes this feels like avoidance only, not wisdom.
I love this inquiry! When does time engender a more thoughtful response that’s more helpful, when does too much time to refine diminish the gift of spontaneity and authenticity? Such a great inquiry both as a practitioner working with others and in relationships outside the treatment room.
I love this question, Mona. I find that with certain people in my life with whom I feel very secure, it's an exciting, mutually creative, improvisational thing to explore as we go in a conversation. A real freedom to embrace "wrongness" not as being wrong, but as trying to circle ever closer to discovering how we feel, what we mean. Riffing off of each other's attempts until you get to the nugget of "YES, THAT!" Tso, yes... I think there are times that pausing too long might lose some of that mutual discovery, but it takes a rare friend to dance that kind of dance!
Jennifer, I'm a therapist too and this answer rings true in my heart. Finding within myself comfort in being uncomfortable with silence has been invaluable; holding space by giving words their own breathing room ... some magic exists in that silence. Some healing, too.
Jan 29, 2023·edited Jan 29, 2023Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Growing up with slower auditory processing in an environment where there was a demand for quick wit and the expectation to absorb verbal information on the spot left me often feeling unheard and isolated, little space for my own voice. I needed time to absorb things. It took me a long time to value this trait as more gift than hindrance, The slowed down process of writing and editing has not only been a coping mechanism, but long been a tremendous source of joy and self-advocacy for me. It is expression all my own and eventually helped me find more confidence when speaking. I continue to learn that relationships and sharing are all about editing and editing some more to distill essence and even a completed poem is still in process. Writing has been my patient friend and she's demanding but she works lovingly with me at my own pace.
Thank you so much Mandy. I am so thankful to be able to share and engage with Padraig and his work and with a community of people like you who post with open hearts and who adore him and his work at least as much as I do. Having heard him on On Being and discovering Poetry Unbound, Padraig's shared gifts expand my internal life immeasurably within a generous and inclusive community, especially needed now with the world in heightened chaos seemingly everywhere. Best to you!
I’m an adoptee, and since I was a child, the shadow of my birth mother has accompanied me. At twenty-one, I lost my adoptive mother, whom I loved very dearly. At twenty-two, I began writing a letter to my birth mother, unsure if I’d ever even have a chance to deliver it. I returned to it over the course of a few years. It went on for pages, roaming into digressions and sometimes reaching into the dark corners of a mind descending into a serious drinking problem.
At thirty-five I got sober. A few years later, I destroyed the hard drive that contained the letter; it was simply no longer my voice speaking in it.
At forty-four, I took a DNA test, and after six weeks of putting together the pieces of a family tree, I was able to put a name to the shadow that walked with me from my childhood. On my forty-fifth birthday, I decided to contact her, and found I had no idea what to say.
What came out was simply, I’m OK. I understand what you did. I’ve spent my life thinking of you. I hope you’re OK, too.
The space I allowed myself before pursuing this, before reaching out, allowed me to extend a hand in love, and in giving without needing anything in return. In the interim, a very loving relationship has developed between us, and we speak often.
It was a long time to wait, for both of us, but like most things in life, it happened in it’s own good time, and I don’t regret a single thing.
My god, Daniel - what a story of time. And that simple message of OK, the working of time in you. I am so moved by all of it. Thank you for sharing this with everyone.
As an adoptive mother, I am grateful for your sharing. We gave our son "Ancestry.com" for Christmas when he was about 25ish. He has never opted to search (perhaps because of a bad experience his cousin, also adopted, had when she found her birth family). But I suspect, when my husband or I die, he might wish to do a search. We just want him to know it is okay.
I only learned after my mother died that she had spent my entire life preparing herself for my search, preparing to help me however she could. It was much easier for me to do this knowing that, in her eyes, it was ok, even if she didn’t live to tell me that herself.
Jan 30, 2023·edited Jan 30, 2023Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
I am also an adoptee. My older sister discovered her family roots on Ancestry.com She is also adopted like myself. I still wait. I've tried to live without shame or regret or even some acceptance. I know that wherever she is in the physical world, it was not an easy choice to relinquish me. I have some chronic depression/anxiety. I do not function well in crowds or social interaction. I'm very self-conscious and somehow if my birth mother revealed herself, I too would not know how to articulate myself. I suppose that my own creativity has to have a foundation as well as the sickness. Perhaps these inquiries leave me speechless and withdrawn still. Love is the answer but sometimes it is not enough. Sighs.
Dear Jt, I do not know the circumstances of your adoption and respect your choice to wait until the time is best for you. And while you struggle through darker feelings, I do want you to focus on the fact that you were CHOSEN by your adoptive family. This makes you pretty special. Peace.
Waiting for things to happen in their own good time - hmmm, that's the current core of the revolution, is it not? Such a seemly small thing in words on the page. But so limitless in possibility .
Yup. My daughter just gave me for my birthday, 'Rest is Resistance.' It's not just about naps - though they can be delicious - but the idea of resting with thoughts, ideas, movement etc. in order to resist the move for more, faster, better, now etc. It is about taking the time to discern as opposed to decide quick, quick, quick. I think the revolution that bubbles around us is about time and space and the resistance to know right now what to do. The fine art of creative loitering is a key revolutionary tool.
Oh, wow. I am so deeply moved by this story, Daniel. The “I’m OK. I understand what you did. I’ve spent my life thinking of you. I hope you’re OK too.” brought me to tears!! Thank you so much for sharing.
I waited to have a conversation with someone whose actions had hurt me, until I had distance enough from my old self to see my own contributions clearly. Until I was more interested in truth and repair then in being right. It was one of the tenderest conversations I’ve ever had: each of us extending grace and generosity back to the person we had fallen in love with then, who had hurt our old selves not out of malice but out of wounding and inexperience. Our older selves, now humbled enough by life and by an intimacy with our own limitations, apologized in earnest. We both felt the balm of our own wounds being acknowledged. But our energy was not on our own hurt — it was on tending the other with integrity and care. Now, I try to wait for and cultivate that feeling: that readiness for true repair, where the soul extends and the heart is soft and anything becomes possible.
Thank you Mel - that is truly beautiful. That "balm" you speak about, that healing piney resin of care and cure. Nothing speeds that up, and your sharing of it here is a sharing of that time.
Thank you so much for sharing. This is beautiful. I am in the process of learning to wait for these opportunities. You’ve expressed the process so clearly.
I especially need time when something really hurts. It is as if time gives me a space to process it a little so words I put out don't hurt me more but then are a start of healing (hopefully understandable, english is not my native tongue)
As a quiet person known for listening, I often take my time in speaking. Sometimes I take so much time that I do not speak. Then the conversation with other live people moves on or ends, and I am left to the conversations in my head!
At times, this quiet is simply not adding to “small talk” or “chatting;” I smile and nod acknowledgment or empathy. At other times I am an appreciative audience for friends who are very good storytellers!
And so I write. I write carefully. But I am learning to write poems. I want to write more freely. I want to be able to not only write stories, but also tell stories in a way to connect and share meaning or laughter.
Thank you for sharing that Karen. I like that you are making poems that are at once a distillation of silence and time, and at the same time an exploration of connection, meaning and freedom.
I recently went through a divorce. I waited for 31 1/2 years for my narcissistic husband to change. Growing up in a religious family, I was taught that you forgive, because that's what you do, plus the other person will change. So, I was patient. I raised our special needs child, I gave up my career, I took care of the house and all our family's needs. Do I regret those years of abuse and heartache? I can't. Because they made me who I am--stronger, clear-eyed, determined, empathetic. If anything, I have to forgive my younger self. I was surviving, and I didn't know that I didn't have to accept certain behaviors. I could be kind AND have boundaries. As Maya Angelou said, and I'm paraphrasing, "People tell you who they are; believe them the first time."
That is a complicated experience of time, Elissa, and I love the wisdom you are applying when you say that the question of "regret" is the wrong one to ask, it's so binary and limiting. Time has contained what it's contained; and the question is now how to live with it wisely and fruitfully and - hopefully - with increasing freedom and love. You sharing this here is fruit of that wisdom. Thank you.
Hi Padraig. I am a new reader. I rarely comment on anything I read. I am beginning to wonder if that might be the difference between 'just consuming' and really engaging with the work. So I wanted you to know, this piece spoke to me. Especially your question, "Does the poem have room enough to look back at me and pose a question?" Brilliant. I will ask this now of my poems. Thank you.
I call this time "percolating." Thoughts abound as I am percolating but I know I am not ready yet. Then, often in the middle of the night, I awake and it is time to write or design a program or whatever needs to be done. I have gone from stressing over this time to gratitude for the bubbling up of ideas, the twisting and turning of my thoughts, the flutters of my stomach when it causes a little fear or hesitation in what I may be needing to do or say, and the solidity of knowing in every cell of my body that it is now time to get into action.
I have to be careful to not get attached to what I think has been the result of percolating and then getting feedback about it. A work in progress for sure!
I love this inquiry. 🙏🏾 Upon initial reflection, my mind immediately went to a time when a “fuck you” became a “thank you,” precisely because I took time before speaking. Quite a bit of time. (two years, seven months, and 3 days, and a few extra hours, just approximately). But upon taking some more time to reflect on this inquiry, I recap a time when taking time before speaking deepened a crack, in which rot grew, and spread, and led to a complete uprooting. I speak literally, not in metaphors. In December 2021 I noticed a crack in my bedroom ceiling. I didn’t say anything at that time, for reasons I can’t quite understand (predictable procrastination? too busy with inner fuck yous toward aforementioned recipient of a more recent “thank you”, and, or, not wanting to make a fuss over just a small crack, defaulting to a habitual “it’s not a big deal,” avoiding dealing with issues of “real adult life” like reporting even a small crack, preferring instead to read poetry, rather than “be the one complaining”)... who knows why, but i didn’t say anything to my apartment building management until July 2022. They then took an inordinate, inexcusable amount of *time* to take action, until January 9th 2023, to be precise, by which time the crack had grown, significantly, and the cause of that crack, a very slow low grade leak from the radiator in the apartment above, had degraded the wood within the ceiling and proliferated the growth of Aspergillus. Mold. One I happen to be allergic to. Having been uprooted from my home, now being asked to not just make a small complaint about a minor crack, but go to all out battle, conjuring my inner Kali-ma (White Tara, step aside)... I see how taking time to speak - out of some kind of avoidance / fear perhaps - led to a much deeper crack, and rot that requires extensive remediation. And while this feels like a mistake, I can also see, spoken from the safety of an alternative shelter, one that’s turned out to be so very lovely and have many gifts, how this radical uprooting is also perhaps what I needed, maybe, to make much needed changes in my habits, and in my life. I’m still at “fuck you” to my apartment building management, and I still think rightfully so. But to Aspergillus, not quite at thank you, but with time I can ask it a question - what have you come here for? What’s needed to be decomposed? Only time (and safety) could bring me to speak this question, even if just to myself.
What a narrative - true events and also presenting themselves in archetypes of experience, mould, time, restraint, fuck-yous, and thank yous. Thank you, Mona! What a delivery of this, too - it works like a first draft of a prose poem.
Dear Pádraig, Thank you so much for doing what you do so well - reflecting my words back to me in ways that help deepen my appreciation for the "common humanity" aspect of my experiences. And for your kindness - thank you for the inspiration and encouragement to write.
I can relate, literally, to the fact pattern. After moving out of my home to do an initial mold exposure,
I find myself in a rental apartment, do you need to follow for my delay in addressing when I came to suspect was Mold there. I am asking myself similar questions about what my hesitation.
I’m so sorry you’re dealing or dealt with this too! And yes… the question of hesitation, or as Pádraig might say, resistance. Worth exploring…., thanks for sharing, Katherine.
Wow, Mona. I can relate to so much in this post! While there is a time and place for not speaking up about a problem, I often take this way too far, going the meek route to avoid conflict. It’s only since I hit my 40’s (and after making some big mistakes) that I’m able to speak up for myself, ask more of others, and to tackle “real adult life”, as you said.
I like the visual of the crack in the ceiling becoming larger, eventually even growing a mold you’re allergic to. That image is going to stick with me as a reminder that we don’t have to settle for what comes from the carelessness, neglect, or laziness of others. Thank you! It’s always nice to know you’re not the only one. 😊
It was the last visit with my dear friend Laura, who lay unresponsive in the ICU, the ventilator keeping death at bay for a little while longer. I had brought a sheaf of papers with prayers for the dying and the grieving. Taking her warm hand, looking at that body that was her and no longer her, I waited. No words came-- just the warmth of her hand, and the warmth of mine.
In my work as a chaplain, I am continually learning to wait and take time before saying something. My deeply embedded default is to use words to fix things quickly, but when I am silent and wait, words have an opportunity to emerge in others and in myself that are more thoughtful and resonant. It is a discipline or practice for me though...doesn’t come naturally yet.
I read somewhere - Henri Nouwen maybe? - that the purpose of a discipline - and he was speaking of a spiritual discipline which yours is - is to create space in order that something new may emerge. He saw the making of that space as the point of all practices, no matter how they looked on the outside. I like this thought, so, yes, it takes time, and never really does come naturally, not to me either. Time, time, time.
My personality drives me to speak the sharp shard of truth that I see in a situation. It took me years to understand that others had equally important fragments to the whole. Now I strive to listen and weave.
I waited to say “I do” and should have waited longer because I didn’t.
Thank you for this extraordinary sentence of reflexivity and change and wisdom and learning, Missie.
This short, powerful sentence took my breath away. Complicated, heartbreaking life, beautifully expressed, Missie. Thank you. It reminded me of the famous six word short story supposedly written by Hemingway. "For sale: baby shoes; never worn."
I had the same response, Jennifer...pithy, poignant and evoking that six word story.
What a great word, pithy.
Speechless
Oof. So much truth. Thank you.
This is just wow. Me too
My mother died
Just as the sun rose
From the river she loved
I said nothing
Just let the river flow
As it always had
Carrying the words unsaid.
Oh thank you for sharing this Jeffrey. God. That you go from your mother's death to the landscape and sun and river and then back to you, and then back to the river locates me into the story so powerfully. Thank you for sharing this.
Thanks for your thoughtful reaction to my post and those of others, Pádraig. And thank you for your podcast, your book (well-thumbed, already!), and this community of readers and writers you are helping to build. Such a gift.
As a therapist, I sit with around 8 patients per day. So often, I find myself holding back a comment or question in order to allow the patient to speak and hear his or her own words. Sometimes, it allows me to wait long enough to hear what I need to hear. What I need to understand better. Time in my office, allows people a safe space to find important words and to know that they are heard.
Thanks for sharing that Jennifer. What a generous art of listening therapy provides - letting the person hear themselves, and you hearing them hearing themselves. That bearing witness is an art of silence and time and restraint. Thank you.
This kind of training must serve you well through all your days, serve you and those you come in contact with. I'm curious: do you struggle with authentic, in-the-moment responses? That is, do you sometimes miss the clash of wrongness? The older I grow, the more I refine (often through writing) my initial response, trying to avoid wrongness. Sometimes this feels like avoidance only, not wisdom.
I love this inquiry! When does time engender a more thoughtful response that’s more helpful, when does too much time to refine diminish the gift of spontaneity and authenticity? Such a great inquiry both as a practitioner working with others and in relationships outside the treatment room.
I wonder the same thing, Mona - and go back and forth in my own life about a spontaneity enacted upon, or withheld.
I love this question, Mona. I find that with certain people in my life with whom I feel very secure, it's an exciting, mutually creative, improvisational thing to explore as we go in a conversation. A real freedom to embrace "wrongness" not as being wrong, but as trying to circle ever closer to discovering how we feel, what we mean. Riffing off of each other's attempts until you get to the nugget of "YES, THAT!" Tso, yes... I think there are times that pausing too long might lose some of that mutual discovery, but it takes a rare friend to dance that kind of dance!
Jennifer, I'm a therapist too and this answer rings true in my heart. Finding within myself comfort in being uncomfortable with silence has been invaluable; holding space by giving words their own breathing room ... some magic exists in that silence. Some healing, too.
Growing up with slower auditory processing in an environment where there was a demand for quick wit and the expectation to absorb verbal information on the spot left me often feeling unheard and isolated, little space for my own voice. I needed time to absorb things. It took me a long time to value this trait as more gift than hindrance, The slowed down process of writing and editing has not only been a coping mechanism, but long been a tremendous source of joy and self-advocacy for me. It is expression all my own and eventually helped me find more confidence when speaking. I continue to learn that relationships and sharing are all about editing and editing some more to distill essence and even a completed poem is still in process. Writing has been my patient friend and she's demanding but she works lovingly with me at my own pace.
Ah, that patient friend. What a gorgeous description. Thank you Amy.
Yes, what an apt description of the environment in which most of us live. Thank you for sharing how you have come to view your way of being.
This is perfectly put, Amy. You write such insightful posts!
Thank you so much Mandy. I am so thankful to be able to share and engage with Padraig and his work and with a community of people like you who post with open hearts and who adore him and his work at least as much as I do. Having heard him on On Being and discovering Poetry Unbound, Padraig's shared gifts expand my internal life immeasurably within a generous and inclusive community, especially needed now with the world in heightened chaos seemingly everywhere. Best to you!
I’m an adoptee, and since I was a child, the shadow of my birth mother has accompanied me. At twenty-one, I lost my adoptive mother, whom I loved very dearly. At twenty-two, I began writing a letter to my birth mother, unsure if I’d ever even have a chance to deliver it. I returned to it over the course of a few years. It went on for pages, roaming into digressions and sometimes reaching into the dark corners of a mind descending into a serious drinking problem.
At thirty-five I got sober. A few years later, I destroyed the hard drive that contained the letter; it was simply no longer my voice speaking in it.
At forty-four, I took a DNA test, and after six weeks of putting together the pieces of a family tree, I was able to put a name to the shadow that walked with me from my childhood. On my forty-fifth birthday, I decided to contact her, and found I had no idea what to say.
What came out was simply, I’m OK. I understand what you did. I’ve spent my life thinking of you. I hope you’re OK, too.
The space I allowed myself before pursuing this, before reaching out, allowed me to extend a hand in love, and in giving without needing anything in return. In the interim, a very loving relationship has developed between us, and we speak often.
It was a long time to wait, for both of us, but like most things in life, it happened in it’s own good time, and I don’t regret a single thing.
My god, Daniel - what a story of time. And that simple message of OK, the working of time in you. I am so moved by all of it. Thank you for sharing this with everyone.
As an adoptive mother, I am grateful for your sharing. We gave our son "Ancestry.com" for Christmas when he was about 25ish. He has never opted to search (perhaps because of a bad experience his cousin, also adopted, had when she found her birth family). But I suspect, when my husband or I die, he might wish to do a search. We just want him to know it is okay.
I only learned after my mother died that she had spent my entire life preparing herself for my search, preparing to help me however she could. It was much easier for me to do this knowing that, in her eyes, it was ok, even if she didn’t live to tell me that herself.
And yet another unfolding of time in this response to Mary, Daniel. Thank you to you both for sharing this.
I am also an adoptee. My older sister discovered her family roots on Ancestry.com She is also adopted like myself. I still wait. I've tried to live without shame or regret or even some acceptance. I know that wherever she is in the physical world, it was not an easy choice to relinquish me. I have some chronic depression/anxiety. I do not function well in crowds or social interaction. I'm very self-conscious and somehow if my birth mother revealed herself, I too would not know how to articulate myself. I suppose that my own creativity has to have a foundation as well as the sickness. Perhaps these inquiries leave me speechless and withdrawn still. Love is the answer but sometimes it is not enough. Sighs.
Dear Jt, I do not know the circumstances of your adoption and respect your choice to wait until the time is best for you. And while you struggle through darker feelings, I do want you to focus on the fact that you were CHOSEN by your adoptive family. This makes you pretty special. Peace.
What a journey you have been on!
Thank you for sharing part of it with us.
I am glad you are experiencing a bond and relationship.
My bother was adopted; I appreciate reading from your perspective as one who was adopted.
Waiting for things to happen in their own good time - hmmm, that's the current core of the revolution, is it not? Such a seemly small thing in words on the page. But so limitless in possibility .
Wow. As I have been grappling with the art of aging, this is a byproduct of slowing down! Waiting for things to happen in their own good time. Yes.
And it IS a revolution, isn't it????
Yup. My daughter just gave me for my birthday, 'Rest is Resistance.' It's not just about naps - though they can be delicious - but the idea of resting with thoughts, ideas, movement etc. in order to resist the move for more, faster, better, now etc. It is about taking the time to discern as opposed to decide quick, quick, quick. I think the revolution that bubbles around us is about time and space and the resistance to know right now what to do. The fine art of creative loitering is a key revolutionary tool.
Wow. I love that last line!
Wow, beautiful! Thank you for sharing this.
Oh, wow. I am so deeply moved by this story, Daniel. The “I’m OK. I understand what you did. I’ve spent my life thinking of you. I hope you’re OK too.” brought me to tears!! Thank you so much for sharing.
I waited to have a conversation with someone whose actions had hurt me, until I had distance enough from my old self to see my own contributions clearly. Until I was more interested in truth and repair then in being right. It was one of the tenderest conversations I’ve ever had: each of us extending grace and generosity back to the person we had fallen in love with then, who had hurt our old selves not out of malice but out of wounding and inexperience. Our older selves, now humbled enough by life and by an intimacy with our own limitations, apologized in earnest. We both felt the balm of our own wounds being acknowledged. But our energy was not on our own hurt — it was on tending the other with integrity and care. Now, I try to wait for and cultivate that feeling: that readiness for true repair, where the soul extends and the heart is soft and anything becomes possible.
Thank you Mel - that is truly beautiful. That "balm" you speak about, that healing piney resin of care and cure. Nothing speeds that up, and your sharing of it here is a sharing of that time.
"an intimacy with our own limitations" - Oh, that is much to be wished for.....
Thank you so much for sharing. This is beautiful. I am in the process of learning to wait for these opportunities. You’ve expressed the process so clearly.
What a wonderful story and outcome. Thank you for sharing how the pause helped to form you and the steps that evolved.
I especially need time when something really hurts. It is as if time gives me a space to process it a little so words I put out don't hurt me more but then are a start of healing (hopefully understandable, english is not my native tongue)
As a quiet person known for listening, I often take my time in speaking. Sometimes I take so much time that I do not speak. Then the conversation with other live people moves on or ends, and I am left to the conversations in my head!
At times, this quiet is simply not adding to “small talk” or “chatting;” I smile and nod acknowledgment or empathy. At other times I am an appreciative audience for friends who are very good storytellers!
And so I write. I write carefully. But I am learning to write poems. I want to write more freely. I want to be able to not only write stories, but also tell stories in a way to connect and share meaning or laughter.
Thank you for sharing that Karen. I like that you are making poems that are at once a distillation of silence and time, and at the same time an exploration of connection, meaning and freedom.
I am like this too. Often waiting too long. xo
I recently went through a divorce. I waited for 31 1/2 years for my narcissistic husband to change. Growing up in a religious family, I was taught that you forgive, because that's what you do, plus the other person will change. So, I was patient. I raised our special needs child, I gave up my career, I took care of the house and all our family's needs. Do I regret those years of abuse and heartache? I can't. Because they made me who I am--stronger, clear-eyed, determined, empathetic. If anything, I have to forgive my younger self. I was surviving, and I didn't know that I didn't have to accept certain behaviors. I could be kind AND have boundaries. As Maya Angelou said, and I'm paraphrasing, "People tell you who they are; believe them the first time."
That is a complicated experience of time, Elissa, and I love the wisdom you are applying when you say that the question of "regret" is the wrong one to ask, it's so binary and limiting. Time has contained what it's contained; and the question is now how to live with it wisely and fruitfully and - hopefully - with increasing freedom and love. You sharing this here is fruit of that wisdom. Thank you.
Amanda, thank you. I love that quote. It's so true, not only for me, but for lots of people, even in this thread. You're sweet to write.
I need to take some time before I comment. Smile. DWJ
Smile.
I wish I had thought of that. Perfect!
Hi Padraig. I am a new reader. I rarely comment on anything I read. I am beginning to wonder if that might be the difference between 'just consuming' and really engaging with the work. So I wanted you to know, this piece spoke to me. Especially your question, "Does the poem have room enough to look back at me and pose a question?" Brilliant. I will ask this now of my poems. Thank you.
Thanks for writing Cathy - and for reading.
I'm so glad to hear of you taking that question, and letting it shape itself into your own work. I'll look forward to hopefully hearing more!
I call this time "percolating." Thoughts abound as I am percolating but I know I am not ready yet. Then, often in the middle of the night, I awake and it is time to write or design a program or whatever needs to be done. I have gone from stressing over this time to gratitude for the bubbling up of ideas, the twisting and turning of my thoughts, the flutters of my stomach when it causes a little fear or hesitation in what I may be needing to do or say, and the solidity of knowing in every cell of my body that it is now time to get into action.
I have to be careful to not get attached to what I think has been the result of percolating and then getting feedback about it. A work in progress for sure!
I use the verb percolate too - it reminds me of good coffee. I'm glad I'm not the only one!
I have such a vivid memory of visiting my grandparents and the smell and sound of the coffee percolating. Just makes me smile!
I call this time "composting" since compost spread later leads to new growth! Percolating is also a great name fo the time we need to take.
Love composting too!
I love this inquiry. 🙏🏾 Upon initial reflection, my mind immediately went to a time when a “fuck you” became a “thank you,” precisely because I took time before speaking. Quite a bit of time. (two years, seven months, and 3 days, and a few extra hours, just approximately). But upon taking some more time to reflect on this inquiry, I recap a time when taking time before speaking deepened a crack, in which rot grew, and spread, and led to a complete uprooting. I speak literally, not in metaphors. In December 2021 I noticed a crack in my bedroom ceiling. I didn’t say anything at that time, for reasons I can’t quite understand (predictable procrastination? too busy with inner fuck yous toward aforementioned recipient of a more recent “thank you”, and, or, not wanting to make a fuss over just a small crack, defaulting to a habitual “it’s not a big deal,” avoiding dealing with issues of “real adult life” like reporting even a small crack, preferring instead to read poetry, rather than “be the one complaining”)... who knows why, but i didn’t say anything to my apartment building management until July 2022. They then took an inordinate, inexcusable amount of *time* to take action, until January 9th 2023, to be precise, by which time the crack had grown, significantly, and the cause of that crack, a very slow low grade leak from the radiator in the apartment above, had degraded the wood within the ceiling and proliferated the growth of Aspergillus. Mold. One I happen to be allergic to. Having been uprooted from my home, now being asked to not just make a small complaint about a minor crack, but go to all out battle, conjuring my inner Kali-ma (White Tara, step aside)... I see how taking time to speak - out of some kind of avoidance / fear perhaps - led to a much deeper crack, and rot that requires extensive remediation. And while this feels like a mistake, I can also see, spoken from the safety of an alternative shelter, one that’s turned out to be so very lovely and have many gifts, how this radical uprooting is also perhaps what I needed, maybe, to make much needed changes in my habits, and in my life. I’m still at “fuck you” to my apartment building management, and I still think rightfully so. But to Aspergillus, not quite at thank you, but with time I can ask it a question - what have you come here for? What’s needed to be decomposed? Only time (and safety) could bring me to speak this question, even if just to myself.
What a narrative - true events and also presenting themselves in archetypes of experience, mould, time, restraint, fuck-yous, and thank yous. Thank you, Mona! What a delivery of this, too - it works like a first draft of a prose poem.
Dear Pádraig, Thank you so much for doing what you do so well - reflecting my words back to me in ways that help deepen my appreciation for the "common humanity" aspect of my experiences. And for your kindness - thank you for the inspiration and encouragement to write.
I can relate, literally, to the fact pattern. After moving out of my home to do an initial mold exposure,
I find myself in a rental apartment, do you need to follow for my delay in addressing when I came to suspect was Mold there. I am asking myself similar questions about what my hesitation.
I’m so sorry you’re dealing or dealt with this too! And yes… the question of hesitation, or as Pádraig might say, resistance. Worth exploring…., thanks for sharing, Katherine.
A metaphor for holding back too long!
I like your question to Aspergillus.
Indeed, a metaphor too!
Wow, Mona. I can relate to so much in this post! While there is a time and place for not speaking up about a problem, I often take this way too far, going the meek route to avoid conflict. It’s only since I hit my 40’s (and after making some big mistakes) that I’m able to speak up for myself, ask more of others, and to tackle “real adult life”, as you said.
I like the visual of the crack in the ceiling becoming larger, eventually even growing a mold you’re allergic to. That image is going to stick with me as a reminder that we don’t have to settle for what comes from the carelessness, neglect, or laziness of others. Thank you! It’s always nice to know you’re not the only one. 😊
It was the last visit with my dear friend Laura, who lay unresponsive in the ICU, the ventilator keeping death at bay for a little while longer. I had brought a sheaf of papers with prayers for the dying and the grieving. Taking her warm hand, looking at that body that was her and no longer her, I waited. No words came-- just the warmth of her hand, and the warmth of mine.
Thank you so much, Amanda. It felt good to start writing about her, a year after she left us.
In my work as a chaplain, I am continually learning to wait and take time before saying something. My deeply embedded default is to use words to fix things quickly, but when I am silent and wait, words have an opportunity to emerge in others and in myself that are more thoughtful and resonant. It is a discipline or practice for me though...doesn’t come naturally yet.
I read somewhere - Henri Nouwen maybe? - that the purpose of a discipline - and he was speaking of a spiritual discipline which yours is - is to create space in order that something new may emerge. He saw the making of that space as the point of all practices, no matter how they looked on the outside. I like this thought, so, yes, it takes time, and never really does come naturally, not to me either. Time, time, time.
My personality drives me to speak the sharp shard of truth that I see in a situation. It took me years to understand that others had equally important fragments to the whole. Now I strive to listen and weave.
Oh those sharp fragments that we try to piece together. Shards and sharpness - thank you for these powerful words, Michele.