Category: Memoir

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

29 – Just Once in a Very Blue Moon

I found your letter in my mailbox today
You were just checkin’ if I was okay
And if I miss you
Well you know what they say…

The playlist doesn’t know better,
picks a song from the queue —
picks you from the queue —
and it’s a blue moon moment
just yesterday:

4 a.m. on the Expressway
up and around the city,
before they buried all of
the late night stories
beneath monuments of hours,

the car is cold,
a late winter bite in the air
and pale smoke curls
that habit more forgot than you,

a pinpoint moment
I hear the angel’s voice
clear and bright, sing
of longing and memory

those moments of missing
that arrive at random,
sometimes, like now
a hundred years since then…

you, me, our mess of love
piercing the darkness then,
this rainy afternoon now,
and I am celestial,
my heart traveling time

Just once in a very blue moon
Just once in a very blue moon
And I feel one comin’ on soon


Photo of Boston’s old, elevated central artery. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

28 – New Eden Revealed


I have lived in this house they called New Eden for 25 years on a quarter acre lot around the corner from Long Island Sound.

There’s a claggy pond out back, and a nature preserve just a stone’s throw away.

It’s Heaven, really, never mind the state road on the other side of the eight foot privet that keeps the peace.

The day I moved in, two bright green parakeets landed on a branch of the great old Maple in the back corner of the yard.

They seemed as auspicious as the lilac, beloved since first sight, blooming at the edge of the driveway.

Every year, I pray the lilac will bloom again, that the Maple will survive another storm to keep company with her resident squirrels and raccoons. And me.

She and I wept together when the grand Oak came down, and we still laugh at dusk when the rabbits come out to play.

Seasons come and go here at a predictable pace,

the sublime hush of winter steps aside for spring birds who sing in sparks of poetry usually lost in the busy buzz of summer

before the breeze of autumn shivers the knotweed and startles the monarchs who make no tracks, but the field mice do

tiny footprints criss-cross with bird notes and the straight firm steps of the coyote

turtles come and go, too, snakes, hawks, owls, and once a frog so big I thought he might be a prince!

this sweet spot has revealed its secrets for ages — snowdrops bloom where never planted, a robin’s nest appears beside a window, and salamanders tuck in by the bird feeder

just last week I discovered a small sliver of ocean just to the south, in between some saplings, hidden from view until now

No wonder the ospreys fly so low, and waves sometimes wake me from dreams.



Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

27 – Resistance is Futile


An old manuscript needs translation and I’m lost
(I don’t think my main character has aged well)

words are shifting under my feet
old sayings have meetings with crickets

Urban Dictionary bumps into Webster on a corner and they’re speechless

I used to worry about losing cursive:

     how will new scholars read old texts?
     how will poets fall in love?

Now I worry about the words themselves,
since my turns of phrase might be misconstrued

misunderstood or

not understood at all

     Let’s go Dutch.
     You mean split the bill?

I seem to walk a fine line of cool / rad / dope / da bomb
and No One Says That Anymore
Worse yet: Huh?

A dictionary maker once told me she loved how language changes, revels in the revealing of new words, and I cringed…

New words make me want to unlive
even though poets make up new words all the time

we have our Poetic License, after all,
a sure defense against goblin mode,
and a loophole excuse for a late adopter like me!


Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

26 – When Will They Ever Learn

There’s an archnemesis on the playground
and devils at the pulpit,
people are afraid of words     words!
ideas, thoughts, stories

the holy rage through traffic to get to their entertainment complex

pass by the street beggar praying he’s not gay or trans or black or blue or whatever their god teaches them to hate this week, this century

and history repeats

I had an archnemesis once
she threw rocks at my face
and called me a whore
but names will never hurt me

it’s the rage I worry about
the everything-that’s-old-is-new-again-rage
fueled by the mouths of demons
and poor pages of books
tossed in the street,
there next to the beggar who picks one up and reads

“He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.”




Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

25 – I Live in a House of Cats

I live in a house of cats:

three before that were

one – Emily
after the poet
loved blue jays
a thing with feathers

and two – CJ
namesake Joy but
arrived with grief
that lifted with love

then 3 – Crystal
so full of life and love
she sparkled!

[ There were two drifters

Moose, who lived next door but preferred to garden here

and Little Black Kitty who learned to trust slowly but enough ]

Of course Lola,
Zen master
lost then found
found me

Now: Molly
Good Golly,
is Whippersnapper
a name for a cat?



Woman with Cat by Pablo Picasso. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

24 – Incognito

In my next life,
I want to live here
in this crazy loud city
where everything feels iconic
and ordinary all at once,
where pavement
steps aside for flowers and
small spots of cool grass,
and trees carry the sound
of musicians and pigeons,
where the ordinary
walk side-by-side
with the out-of-this-world
and I, anonymous,
don’t care about reflections
in buildings made of glass,
where everyone
arrives at the park by noon
and it doesn’t matter
who or what you are,
because you leave soon,
for a few bucks
careen through the underworld,
arrive somewhere else
entirely, like magic,
knowing where you were,
and every place else,
goes on without you.




Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

23 – The Fine Print: A Dream

I promised you a diamond
he says of our courtship,
but never a ring —
and he laughs with that smile,
like I’m in on the joke.
We make a contract —
verbal, never signed,
then I invite them in
and tell them my stories.

I’m charming and kind,
in just the right ways,
endearing and fun
everything they want,
until it’s time for me to leave.
That’s the hardest part,
as they forget the agreement,
so I do it slow to start.

I pack up my interesting bits,
then take back my affection,
I pull at the threads of what’s left
until there’s nothing to hold onto.
That’s when they leave — THEY end it
and the contracts breaks by default.

He sees me crying then and
shapeshifts to the one I remember,
pulls me to his chest and holds on
as tight as that first embrace years ago,
the perfect fit, the smell of old books and cedar,
then a devilish laugh and I wake
to the sound of tears pouring down,
midnight thunder and wicked, wicked lightning.



Image by Jason Holley. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

22 – Rebuttal

This is to be expected.
I don’t come
with a pedigree
or a PH.D.
I don’t wear laurels
or titles well
I haven’t kissed ass
(or any of you),
and I know, I know
I should have bowed
low and deep
before the queen
but I’ve never been one
to follow the rules
or jump through hoops
of anyone’s making
but my own.

Alice illustration by John Tenniel. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

21 – The things I didn’t say…


You’ve got a bit of hate there
stuck between your teeth

cover up that
weak mind,
it’s embarrassing

not cool dude
more wrong side of history
than team spirit or
patriotism, even

maybe patriarchy

kinda red car
nuclear missile
escalation
compensation

if you ask me

which you didn’t

and wouldn’t

because you know
already
everything I didn’t say

and you’re gonna
wear it like a badge of honor
proud and defiant
full of fear and lockstep
down a path
towards an epitaph
that dogma won’t ever resolve


Poem ©2023, Jen Payne, written in response to an NRA backpack. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

20 – the gods are weeping

while the climate changed

and the people went thirsty
and the animals died
and the viruses spread
and the innocent suffered
and the kids were slaughtered
and the fires raged
and the books were burned
and the idols were worshipped
and the empires crumbled

and the people argued
and the people took sides
and the people hated
and the people judged
and the people fought
and the people cried

and the people prayed for salvation

their gods watched, weeping

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

19 – LOVE is My Logo

I am love
worn proudly
in letters

L O V E

on a backpack

announcing
my membership
in the human race
of everyone
imperfect

I am
open heart
compassion
kindness

the antithesis
of hate
and lockstep fear

I am
strong
curious
fear-less

and I will brandish
that logo
brazen
like a weapon.

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne, written in response to an NRA backpack. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

18 – What if La La La Is My Superpower?



When the former lover said

he never understood how I could LA LA LA about things

I thought, now that’s ironic

because I was never very LA LA LA about him

I was more OH MY GOD and OH NO! and WHAT NOW?

But OH NO! always has a way of morphing into OH WELL…

when the adrenaline wears off, fiddle-dee-dee,

and there’s no choice but to change pace,

switch things up

MAKE LEMONADE NOT WAR

paint the dining room blue

sing Give Me Novocaine until the pain wears off

then get right back on the proverbial horse

and ride off into the sunset,

hope and optimism in a pocket

red cape fluttering in the wind

singing

LA      LA       LA



With thanks to Scarlett O’Hara and Green Day. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

17 – Treeline

My path along the ridge
this morning
gives the impression
of sky walking
the fog heavy in branches
that burst in cumulous tufts
of the palest spring green
like clouds, to be expected here
meeting eye level with birds
who suggest I should be singing

Val-deri, val-dera
Val-deri, val-dera
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha


Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

16 – Double-Dutch

They make it seem easy
two ropes turning
jumpers jumping
into the mix

clockwork
enthusiasm

everyone even
knows the words

laughter carries
across the green
where people mingle
call out
come play!
come jump!
come join in!

But my feet get tangled
most of the time
no rhythm
not even rhyme
on those days
when I’m nothing but

out of sync

out of step

out of the loop

out of my depth


While we think of Double-Dutch as a playground game, in some circles the term means “language that cannot be understood. As in: It was all double Dutch [=nonsense, gibberish] to me.” Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

15 – Long Weekend

It was New Hampshire
for God’s sake
and I hoped it would imprint us
how could it not?
those ridiculous mountains
their shock of snow
and sharp air so fresh
your lungs get greedy —
But you were miles away
ghosts on your lead line
climbing summits of regret
a backpack full of memories
bitter and sweet
stuck to the roof of your mouth —
which explains the dead silence
yours and mine
as we watched the snow fall
covering over our footprints
on the path outside.



Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

14 – The Face of Waiting

This here, when I see you,

it’s not longing or love

it’s just the remnants of waiting

waiting for someone to return

the shadow puppets dance

as headlights come home

or the flutter of eyes

after a long night of sleep

there you are, I’ve missed you

memory keen and vivid

how you used to be

photos flip past, the reeling

that feeling so sharp

I can sometimes still feel the cut

smell the mettle’s wound


I WAITED FOR YOU TO COME BACK


Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

13 – 50-Word Classified Ad: Rose Colored Glasses


The future’s so bright,

you gotta wear…

vintage ROSE COLORED GLASSES

FOR SALE, b/o

well maintained,

working condition

despite numerous scratches

and brushes with reality;

good for filtering out

red flags and fair warnings;

useful in fruitless pursuits,

flights of fancy,

and hopeless causes

you have yet to see coming


Illustration & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

12 – In which the poet considers the half-life of love by way of nuclear reaction


The half-life of Uranium
is either 4.5 billion years,
700 million years,
or 250 thousand years
depending on how you examine
its primordial isotopes,
that which remains of its interstellar medium
its stardust —
like us,
formed inside of stars
when stars collide
so what then is the half-life of love?
its biochemical chain of events
a Big Bang complex interplay
of pheromones, dopamine, and oxytocin
elemental
does it decay more or less quickly
than that which lights up the sky?
does it leave traces?
its luminescence still seen
sometimes
its volatility, too
rapid and unpredictable change
just another reaction,
expected meltdown,
its core damage

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

11 – Places of Waiting

I love these places of waiting
this quite axis of the world
a point around which things spin
he on his way there
and she on hers there
they, together, embrace and part
or run, race, return
and I, here, silent
silent and of no consequence
to their what-comes-next
nor to my own, really
I am here-and-now,
a great pause
a smudge of time
a nothingness
into which pours everything
peace, poetry, god

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

10 – Grieving Place, II


before the painted parking lines
and engineered bridges
before the pervasive blazes
that welcomed every one
before the storm
that created a war zone
there was a trail in the woods
a simple trail
that wound from an unpaved lot
up a long, slow incline
and down, slowly, into Eden
or Shangri-La
or Paradise
or whatever you call the place
that brings you back
to yourself
without contortions
without effort
except for moving
and breathing
and letting go
and paying attention
to the song of white pines,
and the path of the pileated,
to the fetal curl of spring ferns
and the sweet Spring Beauty
so small but significant
you get down on your knees
like a prayer
whisper your apologies
for the trespass
weep at the loss of her
secret spot, there
at the base the Oak now fallen,
our heavy footfall
her sure demise

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

9 – Charlatan Prophet Preaches

He makes headlines now and then
one book and then another
false tears and faulty claims
a prophet for profit.
How do you know for sure,
a friend asked.
It’s posture, I explained.
No, not how he sits —
though his aggressive leaning and pointing
are tells, for sure
it’s how he postures his point
twists his words like he twists his face
pushes his prophecies and perversions
like he pushes the energy in a room
hand gestures feign truth like magicians
or priests at the pulpit,
predator preaching his Rules,
his black and white dogma
with a heavy fist to the table
so it must be true,
and you must believe
God Damn It.

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

8 – Trauma Theory

From the fascia that constricts —
wants my body fetal some days —
I cannot extract the kamikaze pilot,
tweeze him from his destructive path
save those who drowned
or the family of survivors
who struggle, still, some days,
to keep their heads above water.

I cannot extract the boy in the photo
unawares and smiling
while sea battles raged
and mothers wept
eyes blind to the
the hard fist of the drunk
who pounded on doors
and broke happy spirits.

Some things float, you see,
carry on despite the damage.

 

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. Photo of her father, taken 1945, around the time his father was considered missing in action. He was aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Twiggs, just offshore from Okinawa when it was torpedoed then hit by a suicide bomber. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

7 – Tribute: Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock

A most graceful dense mounding shrub with broadly spreading branches that create a weeping effect with the deep green, finely textured foliage.


What would the old tree say
of her current predicament —
wedged between the state road
and the utility substation,
her circadian rhythm
forever disrupted
by the flashing traffic light,
her water source, runoff from the
nearby shopping plaza

More than a century ago,
she lived here on farmland acres,
and they named her Weeping
despite her attributes —
a vernal fountain of perpetual joy —
she, a specimen, divine
fated to become more beautiful
a champion of time

But the hour is cruel
marches against the Sargent’s desire
changes our perception of beauty
sephos, Sepphōra, Sephora®

Her graceful curves and
fountain sprays of green
have grayed, and she is deaf
to the song of her breeze

She is not long for this world
— and probably for the best —
we insist ourselves so loudly now
even the bees are grieving.

 

 

Photo by Mary Johnson. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne Inspired by the Weeping Hemlock near my house in Branford, CT. Read more in “Weeping Hemlock Gets TLC” by Marcia Chambers (2012), and “Closing the Book on Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock” by Peter Del Tredici, Arnoldia magazine. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Poetry transition Writing

6 – What Forgiveness is Due

While the healer laid hands,
I felt my breath return
move tentative and slow
from that tight, broken spot
near my heart
down into my belly

my soft, round
curvy belly

the one he never loved

the one I hid under layers
and blankets
and breath

So before I even finished
a poem called Things He Never Liked
I realized its last line was      Me

and that broken spot was      Him

a broken spot
found with breath
healed only

as I forgive

myself.


Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

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Memoir Mental Illness Poetry

When the Mania Collapses in On Itself Again


for Janet

She — burning red on the outside rim
of a recent manic spin,
her hair in flames —
could not find space to fit
her guru self
anywhere in the cockpit,
left it and its
lowercase god
— the one she introduced me to —
somewhere in the space
where the inhale and exhale meet

she was barely breathing
words shooting through the air
like pew! pew! pew!
and her eyes…
her eyes were blazing madness

she was madness
at my doorstep burning
her counsel afire with delusion

I tried to reach out —
breath like a blanket
to swathe the flames,
while my heart screamed
drop and roll! drop and roll!       please

please     come back

I reached into that space
her galaxy of lunacy,
but her trajectory
was light years from now

gone!

I hear she touched heaven
learned to breathe in a final breath
found peace as she dropped
into the hands of god


Image, Thundering Neurosis by Mario Sanchez Nevado, used here with permission from the artist. For more of his work, visit www.marionevado.art.


Categories
Memoir Poetry

Under His Spell (or I am Sure He Was a Sorcerer)


I saw him fly once
up a steep flight of stairs.
I tried to outrun him
(but wasn’t too scared).

Watched him drive blind
down a street’s wrong side —
from a kiss no less.
(I was there for the ride.)

He disappeared like ghosts.
Gone for weeks, not days.
He drove into a tree once,
walked away unscathed.

He’s cheated death and watched death
and wrestled it in the street,
he’s had past lives and nine lives,
and one I’ll never meet.

His devil’s smile and demon laugh
they melted me every time.
Telepath, empath —
I swear he read my mind.

He foretold our future
in such hypnotic prose,
then all of it came true.
(or mostly, I suppose).

He was impulse, reactive
conniving, and wild,
charming, seductive,
I was broken, beguiled —

Because I ate all his lies
(and fed all his fears).
My heart craved his magic,
But his voodoo stole years.

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. Image: Tamara and Demon, Mikhail Vrubel.


Categories
Memoir Poetry

Enjoy the Ride!


Fair warning, Friend.
The ride is shorter than it seems.
After the first few hills,
the thrill tapers off.

Then expect lots of bunny hops

up, down, up, down
up, down, up, down

Best to allow for leg room.
And breathing room.

If you have a high-tolerance
for that kind of thing,
you might enjoy an extended ride,
just table any expectations,
and make yourself a little smaller
(if you know what I mean).

Either way, it’s all downhill from here.

Enjoy the ride, though. It’s not bad,
there at the top of the first hill.
It’s exciting and full of promise.

Wheeeeee!

Until the bottom drops out.

Then you have to scramble,
remember where you left yourself,
gather the bits and pieces
from underneath it all.

There’s no refund for time spent,
so salvage what you can:
photobooth memories and souvenirs.

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne


Categories
Memoir Poetry

Rockport

It was Rockport, North Shore
right before the fall
that humid, hot July,

the slow seduction
of an afternoon,
swimming and showers
that enticed hours
of love making,

our voracious sprint
for sustenance —
four courses and wine,
Garth and The Dance
played at the bar
there on Bearskin Neck.

We were finished, even then
and we knew it,
held tight and played pretend
that one last weekend,
love and loss and relief writhing,
Goodbyes consummated
beneath summer cotton,
The End
a visible blur on the horizon

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne



Categories
Memoir Poetry

Narrative Arc

We blurred the shape of time,
bent it forwards and back,
twisted it enough to find common ground
there in those early fairy tale days
when I was so astonished by Us I wept

Our movements so in sync
it seemed we were cut from one bolt of cloth
only one stored for a decade or more in a castle
full of favorite old books and songs
and endless stories — his and mine
and the ones we tell ourselves about Love
and who we are IN Love

But I never thought to look up
see the turrets and towers along the wall,
pay note to the bunker safely guarded,
the pock marks in that common ground,
the mortally wounded specters
who watched their watches
betting on our time
our precious, precious time

I thought the enemy was age
that Loss would come as natural cause and effect, expected
a well-roundedness to its execution
but I was wrong

Loss seeped slowly between the cracks I didn’t know at first were there
forced itself into the weakest places of Us
the way ivy overtakes mortar in a wall
until all that was left was the evidence of time we call Memory.

©2023, Jen Payne

Categories
Memoir Poetry

Breath Counting

When sleeping with a bear
it is critical to pay attention to the breath —
his and yours.

His will tell you when it is safe
to muck about in dreams
and when it is time
to curl up and play dead.

Death
     in this case: to feign sleep
is a practiced thing

slow     deep     breath     in

slow     deep     breath     out

slow     deep     breath     in

slow     deep     breath     out

Most nights, he’ll forget his hunger
and roll over — you pray
hands clasped around your knees
making yourself small
a burr in the blanket and of far less importance
than himself and his sleep.

©2022, Jen Payne

Categories
Memoir Poetry

Upon Meeting My Dad at the Library

I want to be the one
who sharpens the tiny pencils
tucked neatly in the cubby
next to the Library’s
digital card catalog.

They are all that’s left
of the long wooden drawers,
their well-worn finger pulls,
the alphabet instructions:
how to get from here to there.

The tap-tap-tap machines
have replaced the tactile cards,
the rhythm of sorting,
the meditations of
this simple space where

The clocks tick
and pages turn
motes settle
on memories

and there at my fingertips
as close as those pencils
he appears, my age now
this young or this old
I do not recall…

except for the moment
he said I want to be the one
who punches the clock,
works from here to there
and nothing more

nothing more
after giving so much more
for so long

but it was too late
for anything else
or anything more
than that beautiful secret
said out loud

this young or this old
I do not recall…
his whisper of a wish
the change of heart
frozen in time as

The clocks tick
and pages turn
motes settle
on memories

and now I want to be the one
who punches the clock
or sharpens the tiny pencils
or something quiet and simple
so very simple
for whatever time I have left.

 

Poem ©2018, Jen Payne. Reprinted in memory of my dad who left this planet 27 years ago today. 
Categories
Books Memoir

Everyone Needs a Guide

Dale and me at the launch of my first book, Look Up!, in 2014.


The first time I met Dale Carlson was in 1996 over coffee at the Hidden Kitchen in Guilford, Connecticut. She was the first person to call Words by Jen from the first yellow page ad I ever purchased.

And while we would both tell you that we were not really sure we really liked each other that day — and many days after that as well — we would go on to make almost 30 books together under the name of Bick Publishing House.

Ask me today what inspired me to write books and how I came to start my own publishing company, and I will tell you about the 25+ years that Dale and I worked together: the long hours of editing around her kitchen table, selecting art and cover designs, developing a house style, and promoting her books. All of the things I do for my clients’ books and my own books now, I learned from Dale.

But she wasn’t just a client. Dale was my long-time mentor and spiritual guide who helped me understand my family dysfunction and my mother’s mental illness, who taught me about meditation and the many faces of god. She showed by example that you can create a life on your own eccentric terms, and how it is to move around in the world in the body of writer.

Often, our approaches to life were vastly different — how we saw the world and how we coped as different as our backgrounds and ages. But in so many ways, we were kindred spirits who could complete each others sentences and easily nod in agreement more often than we expected.

We talked just recently about our work together and our long, enduring affection for one another. “It is so lovely,” she said, “to know how entwined we are! Love you, dear one.”

I love you, too, Dale.

Dale passed away on January 23, 2022. You can read more about her life here, or from her many books that are still available online.






Categories
Creativity Memoir Storytelling

Christmas Wonder

A 100-Word Story

Much to the alarm of a grandmother, I picked up the baby and ran, leaving the Christmas celebrations in our wake.

Gathering festive crinolines around her tiny feet for warmth, we dashed out to the front yard, and I pointed up to the sharp winter sky. “Look, Little Miss, it’s the Christmas star!” And she laughed and giggled and leaned into me — a shared  delight.

“Remember,” I said, “That’s the star the wise men followed.”

Who’s to say, of course, if it was just a plane as I was admonished. The spirit whispered love and hope and sweet small wonders.

Photo ©NASA/Bill Dunford

Categories
Creativity Memoir Travel

We’ll have memories for company, long after the songs are gone

Grammy-winning folk artist Nanci Griffith dies at 68 — The Guardian

I first heard Nanci Griffith while driving on the Boston Expressway one night. It was three in the morning, actually, the Expressway before the Big Dig, 30 degrees with the window down, and a beautiful, unnamed voice on the radio. She seemed a kindred spirit, someone who somehow understood the loneliness of that newly heartbroken and somewhat lost twenty-something.

I’ve been workin’ in corners all alone at night
Pullin’ down whiskey
Keepin’ my eyes away from the lights
I’ll never be a fool but I will gamble foolishly
I’ve never let go of love
Till I lost it in my dreams

The moment was out of place and time, and remains in my memory to this day more than 30 years later.

I held onto those lyrics in my mind for years before I found out who sang them. Hoping to hear them again, recognize her distinct voice that still haunted me.

When I met my friend DeLinda in 1991, she knew the song. Knew the musician, too —  the two of them born and raised in the state I would come to know and love over the years.

Nanci Griffith, born July 6 (my birthday) a world away in Texas, was a singer, guitarist, and songwriter, who grew up in Austin. She was an up-and-coming folk/country folk singer when I first heard her that night in Boston. A popular guest on the PBS show Austin City Limits in the late 80s, she won a Grammy in 1994 for her album Other Voices, Other Rooms, and went on to produce more than 20 albums, including the first one I ever bought: One Fair Summer Evening.

I remember the day I found it — that first album — at a shopping mall record store mall, in the G bin. A cassette tape that played in my car for years and years, every song and note connecting to my heart in old soul ways I can’t explain.

One Fair Summer Evening sang me through that early unrequited love. Lone Star State of Mind connected me to my soul mate and my heart space. Flyer helped me grieve my father.

I saw Nanci in concert once, at Edgerton Park in New Haven. It was October 2001, a month after 9/11. To this day, I am not sure if I was more shocked by the sight of planes in the sky again or by the pure and crystal sound of her voice in the starry night air.

The New York Times wrote that Nanci Griffith “may just be one of America’s best poets.” She was, I think, many of my great loves in one voice…

I found your letter in my mailbox today
You were just checkin’ if I was okay
And if I miss you, well, you know what they say…

Just once… in a very blue moon

– – – – –

And when we die we say, we’ll
Catch some blackbirds wing
Then we will fly away to Heaven come
Some sweet blue bonnet spring

– – – – –

These days my life is an open book
Missing pages I cannot seem to find
These days your face
In my memory
Is in a folded hand of grace against these times

– – – – –

There’s a pale sky in the east, all the stars are in the west
Oh, here’s to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest
The wing and the wheel are gonna carry us along
And we’ll have memories for company, long after the songs are gone.

Workin’ in Corners, Poet in My Window; Once in a Very Blue Moon, One Fair Summer Evening; Gulf Coast Highway, Little Love Affairs; These Days in an Open Book, Flyer; The Wing & The Wheel, The Last of the True Believers. Photo from the album cover of Intersection, Griffith’s last album.

Categories
Family Memoir Writing

Life Lessons from Dad

Study hard, be smart.

Weigh the pros and cons of your decisions.

Stand on your own two feet.

Hard work is a key to success.

Dream big.

Love what you love with passion.

When you fall off a horse, get right back on.

Laugh a lot and often…

and you’ll come out on the other side just fine.

That’s my dad and me, college graduation 1988. Today would have been his 78th birthday. Life is fleeting — perhaps that is the biggest lesson of all.
Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

8 – Night Music

Night Music

The D key
on my neighbor’s piano
sounds like an owl

hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo
hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo

maybe a mourning dove

coo-OO-oo

coo-OO-oo

the bell buoy
off Mermaid Rocks?

doong doong doong
doong doong doong
 
Wrong direction, though
an alarm? my phone?

too low for tinitus
its angel songs

too late for a piano
I thought, but

hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo
hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo
 
coo-OO-oo
coo-OO-oo
 
doong doong doong
doong doong doong

That D key had center stage
drowned out the others
in pitch-perfect tones
enough to wake birds
and me, my angels in check

while the Sound rocked on…

Photo and poem ©2021, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

7 – Mindfulness

Mindfulness

Morning

sun

on

tulips

takes

my

breath

away.

Photo and poem ©2021, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

6 – Apple of Discord

Apple of Discord

I had, for years,
chosen words carefully,
like one might apples
in the January bin —
hold, look, turn,
feel for the bruises
beforehand.

And I set them out
carefully
on this paper
we call a screen
so there was time
to savor my meaning —
hold, look, turn,
let down your guard,
love.

But that proved
as elusive as the worms
that burrow in —
making scar tissue
of sweet, soft flesh,
unseen beneath the skin
where bruises bloom
and hearts stay broke.

Poem ©2021, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month. Image: Ceci n’est pas une pomme/This is Not an Apple by Rene Magritte. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

5 – Can You Hear Me Now?

Can you hear me now?

If a tree falls in the woods

is it inclined to consider

the possibility that no one hears it?

and does that make its falling

any less monumental?

What about the bear —

does its obvious defecation

negate the very action?

I mean

what is the value of

scat for scat’s sake

for Christ’s sake?

No matter.

It’s probably just

predictable poop.

Poem ©2021, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month. Image courtesy of the Yosemite Bear Team. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

4 – Coyote Vision

Coyote Vision

The shot was sharp and specific

so precise and premeditated

the anticipated yelp or howl

silent, never came

but he did, in a vision

said, this way this way quick

and we ran through trees

hidden from the path

to a den deep in the woods

a portal to another moment

he in phantom form now and

I, nothing but a thought

on a wave of breath.

Poem ©2021, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month. Image: Wikipedia. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

3 – The Wrong Impression

The Wrong Impression

He ran, he told me,
through the corridors of Heathrow
the framed Monet under a free arm,
it, his grand gesture
to the unrequiting, me

Monet’s water lilies
The Water Lily Pond
(to be precise)
its soft curved bridge
symbolic, perhaps,
of his efforts to cross over
from friends
to something more colorful,
shall we say?

For the untrained eye
it gave the impression of love,
but look closely to see
a thousand random dots,
their missed connections
a terminal romance.

Poem ©2021, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month. Image: The Water Lily Pond, Claude Monet. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

2 – I prayed he left more than a spoon

I prayed he left more than a spoon

As the sun rose, he whispered,
I’ll come back if I’ve left anything
then packed and went
as quickly as he did that first time
some ten years before.
It was a fishing trip then —
a last chance visit with family
before graduation and grad school —
this time a funeral, his uncle.
No lingering, not like other years,
when we dozed dream-wrapped
late into the morning……..loved.
But with New Jersey such a long ride
from our reverie,
he left before we had a chance to…
……..a chance to say anything more than

Same time next year?
Should I bake a cake?
I’ll come back if I’ve left anything.

I prayed he left more than a spoon,
held my breath in pregnant pause for weeks
until it was clear there was nothing
to come back to……..not even the spoon
which still makes its way into coffee,
stirs up the memory of that morning
and what might have been……..afterall
had he left anything more.

For Cliff. Poem ©2021, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month, with a sweet nod to Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. Image: Lorette with Cup of Coffee, Henri Matisse. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Creativity Love Memoir Poetry Wellness Writing

The S.S. (Space Ship) Pussiewillow II

The S.S. Pussiewillow II is a whimsical machine by inventor-sculptor Rowland Emett, who was known worldwide for his intricate machines that whirr, spin, flash, sway, and quiver, going nowhere, doing nothing, poking fun at technology. It appeared on display circa 1980 in the Flight in the Arts gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, complemented by music composed and performed on antique harpsichords by Trevor Pinnock. This indescribable kinetic work became a favorite of adults and children alike. The object was taken off display in 1990, but visitors with long memories still ask about it.

From the postcard:

The S.S. Pussiewillow II, a Personal Air and Space Vehicle of unique Stern-wheel configuration, with Flying Carpet attributes, by Rowland Emett, O.B.E. An adapted Kashmir carpet is enmeshed within a light Jupiter-ring, which undulates and spins to provide False Gravity. Twelve variable-speed Zodiacs spin up to ensure activation of suitable Sign, to nullify adverse contingencies. In combined Control Module and Hospitality Room, the Pilot, accompanied by his Astrocat, pedals lightly (aided by helium-filled knee-caps) to energize Stern Paddle-wheel. There is an elevated Power-boost G.E.O.R.G.E. (Geometric Environmental OARiented Row-Gently Energizer), and a Solar Transfuser for trapping random sun-rays. Module is shown in open attitude, revealing possible Extraneous Being being won-over by Afternoon Tea, and toasted tea-cakes.

“A memory I wasn’t entirely sure was real, of finding something that seemed completely but wonderfully out of place in the National Air and Space Museum,” says the person who took the video below, and I completely agree. Like them, I too, remember wandering around the Air and Space Museum and finding myself in this magical room with its dancing machine and fantastical music. I’ve kept the postcard (above) tucked away ever since — what fun to revisit the memory all these years later!

Postcard and text from the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, 1981

If you like this magical creation, you’ll LOVE the It’s About Time issue of MANIFEST (zine). On sale now!

Categories
Memoir Poetry Writing

Memoir

In the pieces of memory
and scraps of conversations
transcribed in situ
I will tell you about
the headless groom
and the dead dog,
about the failure of Saint Raphael
and the irony of the phrase
“you could get hit by a bus.”
I’ll tell you the 15,000 words that broke me
and the ones that almost put me back together
until I realized my heart was better
cracked wide-open like that anyhow.
Now all I need to do is type

Happy Ending.

on the last page
and hope it will suffice.

Poem ©2017, Jen Payne. Image: Woman writing, Edouard Manet.

If you like this poem, you’ll LOVE the Divine Intervention issue of MANFEST (zine)

Categories
Memoir Poetry Writing

Identity Theft

I look
in the mirror
and see nothing.
Pieces of familiar fall away.
Sticks poke at what’s left.

Start from scratch
or use a box mix?
Put square peg
in square hole…
that’s never been my style.

I take a walk
to get answers.
Insert A into B, get C.
But all I see is ocean.
Vast and unresolved.

IT doesn’t seem
to need answers.
In. Out. Back. Forth.
Up. Down. [Repeat.]
I take my cue and leave.

It’s OK. Really.
I was bored with me anyway.
If you please,
may I see something
in a polygon?

Poem ©2008, Jen Payne. Image: Girl in front of mirror, Pablo Picasso

If you like this poem, you’ll LOVE the Divine Intervention issue of MANFEST (zine)

Categories
Family Memoir Writing

The View From Here: August 31

The View From Here: August 31

The view from here today is this: a shelf in my office. A still life snapshot: longtime friend Winne the Pooh, introduced to me by my Dad when I was a baby; my UMass diploma; the when-in-Paris photo with my friend DeLinda; a Wonder Woman mug; and the very last photo I have of my Dad.

He died less than two weeks later, August 31…twenty-five years ago today.

I always think: I’m glad I asked him to take off his sunglasses that day, because you can see his eyes in this photo. How they connect up with his smile, mirror his laugh.

I always think — if I look hard enough — I’ll see an angel hovering above our heads, hidden in the shadows, waiting.

I remember that day: a cousin’s wedding, the whole family together for the first time in 20 years, his laugh while he played on the floor with his great-nephew, the feeling of not wanting to leave, of wanting just a few more minutes with him.

Now it’s a photo that says more than I can ever tell you. And it sits on a shelf, next to the love he introduced, next to the education he encouraged and the travel he inspired. On a shelf, and on shoulders strong enough to carry all of that forward.

And more: me, Wondering through this life without and yet so very much WITH him. Every day.

©2020, Jen Payne
Categories
Memoir Poetry Writing

Memoir

In the pieces of memory
and scraps of conversations
transcribed in situ
I will tell you about
the headless groom
and the dead dog,
about the failure of Saint Raphael
and the irony of the phrase
“you could get hit by a bus.”
I’ll tell you the 15,000 words that broke me
and the ones that almost put me back together
until I realized my heart was better
cracked wide-open like that anyhow.
Now all I need to do is type

Happy Ending.

on the last page
and hope it will suffice.

Poem ©2017, Jen Payne. Image: Woman writing, Edouard Manet.
Categories
Memoir Poetry Writing

Reading Mary Oliver in a Pandemic

I’m reading Mary Oliver again
and for the first time, too, it seems,
meeting once more my kindred
in these quieter, solitary days —
only she likes dogs and I’m allergic, so
I think of the love I’ve shared with cats
and superimpose that over
what she so easily offers on the page,
allowing me to sink my feet
deep into the sand of beaches we love,
find borrowed respite and fresh salt air
as she walks and they walk and we walk.

This is not unlike my general effort of late,
translating dogs into cats,
crumbs into cake, lemons into aid,
finding devotion somewhere
in the twists and turns of what is,
of here and now, of no I don’t love dogs but I do love you,
and damn it someone should write that down
to remember before it’s too late.

Like Mary did:
gathered up all of her words
her favorite words, her treasured words
her words so precious and important
they required devotion
in this heavy record
of everything she wanted to say
and everything she held in silence

which

sometimes

is all we can offer each other.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne upon reading Devotions by Mary Oliver. Photo from Pexels.

Categories
Memoir Poetry Writing

The Afghan

For Dorothy Reitbauer

“This,” my friend says, “is lovely.”
Lovely is never a word
I use to describe the ugly afghan
crocheted by my grandmother
and dragged out of storage
when guests sleep on the sofa.

It is avocado green and orange,
milk chocolate brown,
and amber gold,
like the gold my parents
painted the kitchen
of our new house back then.

“She picked each color herself,”
my friend explains,
as she carefully runs her fingers
up and over the zigzag pattern
with awe and affection,
though she never
met my grandmother.

It is the color palette
of my seventies family,
when Mom and Dad
were almost-happy still,
my sister played with Barbie
by the sliding glass window,
and my bangs were
appropriately feathered
away from my face.

“She thought about
you and your family
with each stitch.”

I could see her then,
sitting in her green recliner,
counting stitches like
the beads on her Rosary.
Love Boat on the Sylvania,
drinking instant iced tea
while a cigarette smokes
from the ashtray.

It was after her husband died,
and she traveled with her dog Coco,
bringing Shoo Fly Pie and
Moravian Sugar Cake from
Pennsylvania to our house
in Connecticut.

That Christmas,
she crocheted ponchos for us, too,
and took me to Hawaii
to see my Grandfather’s name
carved in marble at the
Pearl Harbor Memorial,
watch as she traced his name
with her fingers, slowly.

The same deft hands
that crafted this blanket
raised a son and daughter
independently in the fifties;
folded in prayer
for neighbors and friends;
prepared feasts
with love
for grandchildren.

“So much thought went into this,”
my friend continues,
as we carefully fold the afghan
and place it on top
of the antique hope chest
in the corner.

“Each stitch, each row,
holds love and memories.”

 

©2009, Jen Payne. Written for my grandmother, Dorothy Reitbauer. Seen here in 1943/44.

Categories
Creative Nonfiction Living Memoir Quotes Spirituality

Flexible Flyer

This week, I learned that Nicholas Koutroumanis, an old friend of my family, died recently. I thought I would share this piece I wrote about him 8 years ago.

 

 

Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you.…All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.

– – – – –

We call him Pappous, or Nicholas.

He and my mother became fast friends five years ago while neighbors at the their senior-living apartment complex. They went for walks, grocery shopped, and sat in doctors’ waiting rooms together. They listened to each other’s stories — her two daughters, growing up in Pennsylvania, the divorce; his life in Greece, the war injuries, his son.

He is old enough to be her father, really, but they seem to find comfort in such differences. Her patience with him seems endless, and his with her. He speaks broken English and Greek, she nods her head; she talks forever, and he nods his. He picks a piece of lint off her sweater and she waves him away; she kisses his cheek and he waves back.

The first Easter he spent with my family, he sang hymns in Greek — his voice so pure and beautiful you would cry at the sound.

Nicholas has been a frequent companion with my mother for holidays and birthdays and family celebrations over the years. He always brings pears, or grocery store pies, and tells stories about wild turkeys, God…and spirits. On my nephew’s first birthday this summer, he sat on a folding chair in the shade wearing a Hawaiian lei watching his little “Cowboy” enjoy the festivities.

– – – – –

And then you will be ready to begin the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love.

– – – – –

My friend MaryAnne and I saw Nicholas today. He has a nice room at Yale, overlooking the hospital’s parking garage. Outside of a little high-blood pressure, he seems no worse for the wear of his 88-years, except…

“You’ll have to forgive me” he says for the fifth time in 20 minutes, “This is my first time getting old.”

For six weeks, Nicholas has been in this holding pattern — somewhere between his old life and his next one at a yet-to-be-determined nursing home. But he makes do. There are photos of his families taped to the window — his son and granddaughter, my sister and her son. A Greek newspaper is half-read and folded across the arm of a chair next to his favorite hat and familiar tan jacket. He makes easy, flirty conversation with the nurse who arrives to take his blood pressure. He tells old jokes and hugs us each with full and firm resolve.

A dry-erase board in front of the bed reminds him that TODAY is Friday, NOVEMBER 23. It includes the names of his doctor, the nurse. The blue magic marker notes that he is INDEPENDENT, but he is as much aware of the confines of this new life as we are.

“What are you going to do?” he shrugs his shoulders. “This is the day you have.”

In one moment, he is tangled in loops of conversation — “So, how are you?” he asks four, five, six times. And the next, he is as lucid as the day he fixed me up on a blind date, and sat as chaperone over tea and pear slices.

As we drink coffee from paper cups in the hospital cafeteria, he moves effortlessly from 40 years passed to last week to 10 years ago. My mother is his wife is his daughter is my sister is me. The details are off, the timeline is skewed, but the meaning of what he wants to share is clear.

“I woke up at 4 a.m.,” he says, “because there was a bright light. When I opened my eyes, I saw Stella. My wife. She was so bright. I told her how much I miss her.”

Stella passed away three years ago.
He is trying not to cry.

“I told her ‘I miss you Stella, come here’ but she would not come. I asked if she is in heaven and she said no. No.”

It is not heaven, he tells us, just a different side of the atmosphere.

“Here,” he says, holding his heart, “is heavy because we are here,” he points downward. “But there, on the other side of the atmosphere, everything is light.”

– – – – –

Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your thought itself.

– – – – –

In and out of the conversation, I am reminded of the pages in Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which I read for the first time earlier in the day.

Nicholas, my elder and my Pappous, teaching me as wise Chiang taught Jonathan.

The trick… was for Jonathan to stop seeing himself as trapped inside a limited body.…The trick was to know that his true nature lived, as perfect as an unwritten number, everywhere at once across space and time.

Nicholas seems to move that way now — effortlessly across space and time. If he is bothered by his current situation he doesn’t let it show too much, and then forgets soon after. Besides, what are you going to do? This is the day you have.

 

©2012, Jen Payne. Quotes from Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Categories
Books Creativity Memoir

The Big Picture

Recently, my friend DeLinda gave me a paint-by-numbers set. But this is not your stiff, childhood red barn or Venice gondola paint-by-numbers, no no no. This is a brilliantly colored, wild-stroked, Bohemian cow painting.

Of course, there are a lot of steps to get from the detailed, numbered canvas to the realized final effect. To get from here to the big picture, if you will. The challenge of that is not lost on me — nor on DeLinda, who is always good at throwing down a subtle but effective test of my self-perceived limitations.

And who, right now, doesn’t have self-perceived limitations? This gauntlet of a challenge — colloquially known as COVID-19, scientifically considered a Pandemic, and psychologically in tune with the end of the world as we know it — is testing all of our skills: emotional, psychological, organizational, financial. Are we able to deal with this? And how?

Even more difficult is the fact that none of us has a clear picture of what this looks like when it’s over. Which brings me back to the paint-by-numbers.

This awesome paint-by-numbers kit would be a challenge for a trained artist, never mind someone like me who doesn’t have much experience at all. With that in mind, I thought I’d share my experience of this project with you so far — a broad-brush glimpse of how we come wired with the ability to adjust and adapt, even if we don’t think we do.

#1
The first paint is a pale shimmery blue that does. not. cover. over. the. numbers. This gives me a lot of anxiety. And, it makes me really angry. Shouldn’t it cover over the numbers? Why wouldn’t it? Maybe I’m not doing it right. Or maybe I am the worst human on the planet…at best, a little over-emotional right now. So I close up the paint, clean the brushes, turn off the light for the day.

#2
We move from pale blue to pale gray, and I realize quickly that following the implied rules of this — applying pale gray only to the number 2 spaces — is next to impossible. It’s messy already, and I am coloring all over the lines. Outside of the lines! And I’m just not doing this right. So I close up the paint, clean the brushes, turn off the light for the day.

#3
Pale gray to medium gray brings an understanding that each paint layers onto the next. Everything happens for a reason. Solutions don’t always show up right away. With that acceptance, there evolves a somewhat nicer pace to the process. Paint a little. Wait for it to dry. Paint a little. Wait for it to dry. Work a little. Rest a little. Work a little. Rest a little.

#4
Slate gray is a strong color, and brings with it a certain confidence. It takes care of some of those early mistakes and disregards the messy strokes. Slate gray has a can-do spirit, and I find that I’m much braver with my brush strokes now.

#5
My first brush stroke with paint #5, a bluish gray, lands smack in the middle of a #6 space, but I roll with it. No one is going to know, or care for that matter, if a 6 space is painted color 5. It’s time to get over myself. And it’s time to get over some of these expectations that make things harder than they need to be. Breathe. Relax. Paint. Then clean the brushes, turn off the light for the day.

#6
Paint #6 is white paint. White. And I immediately have PTSD flashbacks of paint #1, that pale, translucent blue and the show-through numbers. But by now, I’ve adapted. I’ve learned some new brushstrokes and paint tricks that cover over the numbers. Now I’m just painting liberally over lines, blending into other spaces, layering paint impasto on top of numbers. Come what way!

#7
Last night, I painted all of the #7 spaces with a happy yellow paint. I made small, flower-petal strokes, and big, flamboyant messy ones. I blended here and stippled there. I’m in the groove now, even if the canvas is just a mass of messy paint splotches. Does it look like a cow yet? No. Is it even pretty yet? No. Will it ever be? Doubtful. But man, that yellow sure is happy.

THE ROLLER COASTER RIDE

I find my reaction to the paint-by-numbers project mirrors, somewhat, my experience of the pandemic, a roller coaster ride of responses similar to those outlined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross to describe the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. And make no mistake, we are grieving. If not the loss of a family member or loved one, then a loss of work, income, companionship, routine, our sense safety and what’s normal.

Understanding those stages of grief, understanding our reactions to what is happening around us, is critical to our mental health — even if we can’t see or know what the big picture looks like yet.

In an article on the Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Learning Network website, psychiatric nurse practitioner Andrew Penn writes: “The five stages of grief…are a useful map as we transit through the uncharted emotional aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.” His 3-part series “Navigating the Emotions of a Pandemic” is a must-read if you or someone you know is struggling to cope with this current state of the world. Check it out in the LINKS below.

Penn ends his first article with a beautifully appropriate poem by Pablo Neruda, “Keeping Quiet.” I’ll leave you with this, then, and my heartfelt hope that you are safe, healthy, and able to find your own creative path through this wild journey.

With Love,

KEEPING QUIET
Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

LINKS

Navigating the Emotions of a Pandemic
The 5 Stages of Grief as a Framework for the Journey
Making Room for Grief During COVID-19<
The Search for Acceptance and Meaning in COVID-19

Other Interesting Links

Branford Land Trust – for nature activities, outdoor things to do, and places to visit
Good News Network – an alternate source for headline news
Guilford Art Center – watch for a new online learning section coming soon
Guilford Poets Guild – celebrating April’s National Poetry Month and more
Hope for Paws – where I go when I need a happy ending
Pediatrics Plus – for ways to manage the COVID-19 shutdown with your family

“Understand there’s no right or wrong
way to grieve, including anticipatory grief.
It’s like the ocean. It ebbs and it flows.”

― Dana Arcuri, Sacred Wandering: Growing Your Faith In The Dark

Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

You are braver than you believe & stronger than you seem…

I’ve been walking around barefoot a lot. Outside, in the yard, to the mailbox — no matter the temperature or weather. It reminds me of that opening scene in Die Hard when John McClain’s seatmate tells him “After you get where you’re going, take off your shoes and your socks…walk around on the rug barefoot and make fists with your toes. It’s better than a shower and a hot cup of coffee.”

It turns out, that’s pretty good advice.

In the article “This Die Hard Relaxation Hack Is Actually Brilliant,” podiatrist Ernest Isaacson explains, “Being barefoot is a great way to feel one’s way around new surroundings, and by removing the protective covering of our shoes it also establishes a level of trust to the new digs, which is comforting, relaxing, and just feels good….Walking barefoot takes us back to our primordial roots, and allows the many nerve endings on the bottom of the feet to make contact with the ground, thereby establishing a real tactile connection to our new surroundings.”

New surroundings like these weird, scary, sad, difficult pandemic surroundings? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got anxiety on a constant feedback loop. Adjusting means processing a lot more information, being OK with a change in routine and expectations, and settling down into not know what happens next.

Walking barefoot, wiggling my toes in the wet grass or on the cold pavement, reminds me to be in the moment.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” — Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, The Teaching of Buddha

Living wisely and earnestly for me right now translates into surrounding myself with the things that immediately bring me comfort: phone calls with good friends, my cat Lola, homemade meatloaf, living room yoga, walks in the woods, writing, and books.

I realize I’m lucky in that. I’m not on the front lines, working in a hospital, striving to keep our communities safe, managing a houseful of little ones. For each and everyone one of us, these are hard and difficult times, in vastly different ways.

So, how are you spending your pandemic days? Are you safe and healthy? Are you balancing worry with wonder? Getting enough rest, movement, breath, prayer, food? Reaching out and digging deep? Have you found what brings you comfort?

Here is a gentle reminder from one of my go-to comforts, Winnie the Pooh:

“You are braver than you believe, you are stronger than you seem, and you are smarter than you think.”

We will be Okay…and YOU will be Okay.

Take off your shoes. Wiggle your toes. Breathe.

Love, Jen

News from My Living Room

THANK YOU, ALPHA COIRO!

Friends of the Blackstone Memorial Library board member Alpha Coiro recently featured me and my books in the library’s spring newsletter Marble Columns. You can read an advance copy of her article by clicking here.

MEATLOAF

Hankering some comfort food, I looked up recipes by cooking goddess Ina Garten and found her recipe for Meatloaf (click here). I had to ad lib a little: I didn’t have tomato paste, so I used sundried tomatoes in oil; and a crumbled Bisquick biscuit stepped in for bread crumbs. I served it with canned peas and macaroni and cheese and was immediately transported to my grandmother’s kitchen circa 1972. Ahh, comfort.

BOOKS

If you’re looking for something else to read, visit my Etsy Shop where you’ll discover both print and NEW! ebooks for sale.

“Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds.” – Roxane Gay

Essay ©2020, Jen Payne. Illustration by Ernest Howard Shepard, “Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent,” illustration for A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh (London: Methuen; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1926. Quotes from This ‘Die Hard’ Relaxation Hack Is Actually Brilliant , by Dan Myers, The Active Times. Winnie the Pooh Quote by Karl Geurs and Carter Crocker, Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin.