To the Pain

If you’ve been reading the Rolling Desk or following my Notes, you might have seen vague hints that I’m facing a new, unexpected health challenge. To share or not to share? Among the many fascinating pieces of watching the creature who is me deal with pain and change is seeing shifts in long-held, unquestioned tendencies. A fierce need to keep private especially anything that is “bad” or “difficult” seems to be dissolving. Instead of wanting to hide or be cryptic, I want to tell you that, after months of pain that’s slowed me to a crawl, I’ve been diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. AS is in the rheumatic arthritic family, so autoimmune, and affects the large joints—hips and shoulders and neck. And there are relatively new treatments to slow or maybe even stop its progression, which I’m now looking into.

I want to share this with you because many of you have your own projects I follow, and if I’ve been or may be slower to interact with them than usual, I want you to know why and that I’ll get there eventually. I want to share what’s going on with me because I want to know what’s going on with you. And I want to share because having made the leap to writing just before this started—both publishing here on this stack and working on a manuscript and book proposal and other projects—has been a boon. Had the pain come first, I wouldn’t have done it; I’d have thought it wasn’t the time. But the leap came first. And so, as I’ve watched that creature who is me deal with the ups and downs of these past months, I’ve seen one constant, even after she’s crumpled in hopelessness or shed silent tears in grocery stores or wailed for relief—joy. I’m doing work that I love with everything I am. I’m moving toward goals I’ve had for as long as I can remember. I’ve found in you readers who resonate with what I have to say and friends who also understand the beauty and power of words and of the conversation that is publishing them. I want to share so I can fully thank you for being an integral part of my unmitigated joy.

Today’s post is a tribute to that joy, to poetry month, and to pain, my teacher. I’m not typically a poet. But I enjoyed crafting these. Gratitude goes to

Jeannine Ouellette

and her Visceral Self intensive, as the first two poems were products of weeks 1 and 2 respectively. And gratitude also to Vicki, for a recent well-timed hug and for the pink cloth that appears in one of the poems.

On the last day of my stay at the “winter woodsy house,” I walked the grounds, photographing the trees and flowers I’ve come to love. I’d have certainly missed the chance to walk the property at the pace of a sloth and know its details so well had the pain not come. This is among my favorites of that final day’s photos.

Just Wash Your Face, I Said

After Mary Oliver, “Freshen the Flowers, She Said”

So I brought liquid warmth to skin in a cup

made of palms,

squeezed a dollop of gel, and rubbed my hands together, pausing to breathe citrus

and let the night soak into me—the silence of star song, a distant chirping of tree frogs, the bark of a bird I call night heron though we’re too far north, because who else sounds like that, the landing of a leaf on the greenhouse roof.

My fingers found forehead, traced

the wide orbs of brows and cheekbones, softened

to circle closed lids, spread

across cheeks to press deep into temples, and met

surrender of throat and chest completely.

It took three, and then five, palms full to rinse before feeling for the bright pink cloth, a gift from a woman sharing a favorite thing.

Three and then five more ministrations from a cup not so empty after all.

Thanks, Jeannine, for highlighting this poem and the close read you led in your post and discussions.

Relief

That’s my laughter. And then, Ohh, there’s that melody that lives in my belly,

spilling out once more.

What a painter, morning—lodgepole pines outlined in buttercup; a bay of rippling cream; and across it, Whidbey Island, a smudge. Western hemlocks, Pacific madrones, Douglas firs, red alders, and big-leaf maples rendered in one pewter-emerald plop of brush.

My sister’s bichon lays her paw on my leg and sighs. Too content to be drawn

into the music room, even when notes pour from my niece’s fingertips,

even when sunlight has already spilled itself, soaked deep into the long window seat next to the harp.

I climbed the stairs this morning, one foot per stair, hands free from banister.

Luna, the very bichon in question, who adores belly rubs, perhaps even more than sustained eye contact and who yell-barks at me whenever I’ve not visited in too long.

Raise a Glass

To single-mindedness of purpose

To the sheer brilliance of a body’s linguistic system

To serenity amid chaos

To becoming a receptacle

To the privilege of experiencing shifts with support

To the gift of turning, ever so slightly, toward, rather than constantly away from death

For what greater teacher, no?

My niece playing her harp in a recent recital. Do you see now how much that dog loves me? For she loves music too and will run to the music room whenever this born musician takes to harp or piano or guitar.