Are We One Yet?

Tags

asian, china, people, travel experiences

Today’s dVerse prompt came from Kelvin. He shared a nasty experience of racial discrimination that told him that he was ugly and that all Asians are ugly. I only know Kelvin through his poetry and as a result I am very fond of him. I find him to have a very beautiful face. I look forward to his words. Kelvin is from the Philippines. I have always enjoyed his poems and “running into him upon the Internet.” He has challenged us to write about “our” Asian experiences.

The first thing that I will draw your attention to is my blog title: noh where – poems and such.” The word “noh” refers to two things. Noh derived from the Japanese word Nogaku means “skill.” It refers to the classical drama of Japan practiced since the 14th Century where in males often wearing masks play the roles of both men and women. Noh is also the name of a town in Burkina Faso, Africa. Information from Wikapedia can be found here. Therefore my blog title “noh where” is a play on words meaning “everywhere” or “all people.” Or, the title is meant to express inclusivity of all.

I will share a couple of my experiences in China that took place in 2007 when we visited. And let me add that these experiences could have taken place anywhere. Now they are taking place here at noh where. The idea of writing a poem about my “Asian” experiences is exceptionally challenging. I am thinking haibun. Yes, I will go with the haibun style, a paragraph of prose followed by a haiku. Having written at NaHoWriMo on Facebook for a time encouraged me to learn much about Japanese poetry – resulting in my “falling in love with it.” It was in China that I had my first experience of “being one with all.”

Haibun
After many hours of travel, we arrived in the middle of the night in Beijing exhausted. After customs we lined up for a taxi. I have discovered that many young Chinese having grown up with little, know today that they must fight for what they wish, quiet literally. This was first demonstrated to me in the taxi line as I was nearing the front of the line. I am a short woman. I turned around to observe an exceptionally tall, young Chinese man using his height and weight to navigate to the front of the line. That sort of nonsense doesn’t fly with me, at all. I stuck my arm up, not able to reach his head and said “Oh no you don’t!” Surprisingly, he stopped.

bamboo shoots will soon wave in the wind – as new growth

Haibun
On the sidewalk on a Saturday evening in Xian I observed a long banner showing the body of a man bloody and bludgeoned. This banner fronted a group of about 200 workers protesting the sadistic behavior of their employer. They looked sad and dejected, without energy. I found a woman who spoke English to ask her about this. What was happening? She shared about the protest. I became absolutely incensed. I left my husband and went up to this group of seated employees and started marching up and down in front of them, clapping my hands and yelling yes, yes, yes. Shortly thereafter they stood up, smiles came upon their faces and they started clapping no longer drained of energy. They felt supported, reenergized, then they really got into their protest. I gave them a thumbs up and left with my husband. I have never felt such a spontaneous moment with humanity.

rank weeds in the pond being cleared for new – fragrant growth

The Poetry of War – Writing It.

Tags

afghanistan, experiences, iraq, korea, poetry, spirit, veterans, vietnam, vietnam veteran, war, war veterans, wisdom, writing, WWI, WWII

Why and how can a woman who has never endured combat and never been in military service to her country possibly write poetry about war, and be impassioned with doing so? Another question may be how can she do this with any authenticity? And here in lies the need to describe an experience that I in 2005. The experience has transformed my life. It was an experience filled with extraordinary joy and extreme pain. It definitely looked as though I was having a mental breakdown and it took unimaginable strength to hang on to my sanity. But I did so with a strategy. I will share the results of this experience before I attempt to share the experience. Following are many of the results.

1) I acquired a knowledge that: “we are all one” while in China the spring after my experience. As a result I spontaneously addressed a Chinese workers protest on a Saturday night by running up to the participating seated workers. They looked hopeless. This group was protesting the torturous and bloody treatment endured by a number of employees. I went from one end of this group of about two hundred to the other end. As I did so I clapped my hands loudly while yelling “yes, yes.” Now this was a crazy thing to do in China – but it was NOT something I thought about. They, the workers, in turn got up and started clapping. Smiles came upon their faces and we each knew that indeed “we were as one.”

2) I learned to fly a 1947 Luscombe 8 tail-dragger at 60 years of age.

3) 5 different Vietnam Veterans who had seen combat chose to share their burden of war with me anonymously. Please understand veterans of war do not speak of their experiences to anyone but another veteran if at all. These veterans just came to me like a magnet.

4) I acquired a deep and abiding love for veterans of war. Whereas in the past I had thought of the veteran 3 time s a year.

5) I volunteered for 2 years at the VA.

6) I express my appreciation to veterans when I see them.

7) I made a spontaneous decision to give up my fear of heights and did so as I stood with my feet on the edge of a 2600 ft drop (no fence or railing) at Machu Picchu in 2007.

8) I came to a deep understanding of the love my father had for me (which had seemed to disappear when I was only 6-8 years old). After this experience I was bathed in his love and came to understand that it seemed to disappear as a result of WWII Combat PTSD. He was dead when I had this experience.

9) I discovered my mother’s WWII scrapbooks from the time that she had lived in London as an American employee of the OWI during the bombings. Yes, her personality too was shaped by war and very likely by Combat PTSD. I say combat because to endure bombing and have no ability to retaliate – well that is the worst kind of combat to endure isn’t it? My mother was not nice to her children. And that is a kind manner in which to explain her mothering.

Because the spiritual experience that I had was so complicated I shall simply relate the bare bones of it. As is my way I put out there; “OK what next? What do you wish me to do?” I soon found myself looking for my father’s WWII history in a number of places on line, especially in a WWII forum. I met a Vietnam Veteran there, a B-52 pilot. He too was looking for his father’s WWII history. He assisted me in my search. Then I wanted to know about his own war experiences. I was persistent. He was hesitant. I persisted and he in a halting manner shared some of his experience. This sent me into a tailspin of contemplation quite literally. I was unable to eat (trust me I never stop eating) and the need to walk, walk, walk (I don’t exercise) took up most of my time. I lost a good bit of weight. I set myself up with an energy worker to keep me grounded and a personal trainer to help me do the same. At the end of this I went to someone who “sees.” She was only slightly helpful. This is key, I experienced this Vietnam Veterans “pain” associated with his war. That was the hell of this experience. I went on to do what I always do which is decipher things for my self. Now this happened in 2005 and the last thing that I learned from this experience, I learned in 2011. I went on to study war. After the experience itself was over, I came to understand that this was a shamanic initiation. I have studied and practiced shamanic healing experiences for many years. Please understand this is not a religion. I know much more than the average person about shamanism. Throughout my spiritual path beginning at 15, I have like many, asked for a “teacher.” The answer has always been “no.” I have always had to do everything in life on my own. That statement sounds like “poor me.” It is quite the opposite and is evidence of significant personal strength. Throughout the experience I practiced certain shamanic rituals to help me deal me with the emotional pain and confusion that I was experiencing at the time. I came to understand (feel) that war is the most addicting of all addictions. I also fully understand why it is so. I have a Christian background intermingled with indigenous spirituality, a smathering of Hindu, Unitarianism, Jewish Theology, Buddhism and what ever other languages God created and gave to the world’s different cultures so that they could each grow spiritually and communicate with the creator.

I have written this as an explanation or prelude to my writing a collection of “War Poetry.” I am going to attempt at some point create a separate page here upon my blog for those poems. I wish to have them published. Today I have been newly inspired or mused by “The Headlines of War.” Now I realize that I need to widen that inspiration to simply “The Headlines.” Thank you for taking the time to read my words. I have a great appreciation for your time. Below is the first poem of war that I wrote after my experience. There is shall we say “language” in the poem that might offend.

Photo Credit Use of Boeing-owned photos posted from their web site are licensed for private, non-commercial use only.

B-52s

I remember them.
Large black fins
in 67 & 8.
We’d drive to Kadena,
park the truck
watch them circle
like sharks
behind the security fence.
All we saw were black
shark fins … taxiing for take off,
B-52s lined up for Vietnam.
The NVA called them
Whispering Death.
Three years…860,000 pounds
of carpet bombing.
Rolling Thunder
coming out of U-Tapao,
Anderson and Guam.
They came in threes … Arc Light!
Coming from the 9th, the
22nd, the 91st, 99th, the 306th, the 454th, and
the 461st, they flew at 50,000 ft,
subsonic speeds, refueled in mid air,
carried 70,000 pounds of mixed ordnance.
Known with affection as BUFFS
Big Ugly Fat Fuckers
Operation Linebacker.
Ten, twelve hours in the sky
peeing in a sleeve,
freezing or scorched while
flying towards hell.
Clear left, limbs seen hanging
clear right, friends literally falling from the sky.
Then, the Christmas Bombings, SAMs brought them down
U-Tapao lost two in mid-air
One in each cell…one on final…the entire crew lost.

This is posted at dVerse Poets Meeting The Bar: The Unfathomable.

To Re-Fresh

Tags

change, haiku, heart, spring

barely spring now

like fresh magnolia buds

the heart can refresh

So now, that is what is taking place, now that my heart is refreshing, moving onwards and hopefully upwards, it is time for change in my blogging habits.  I have known for a short amount of time that this must be so.  However, I cannot take credit for the changes that you will see in my blog (that is once I master the technicalities).  I have been working on these technicalities all day and yet, they go un-mastered.  Never mind.  I wish to acknowledge and thank a fellow writer, friend and mentor to many, Jaime Dedes for the changes that I am making.  Her blog can be found here:

1) I will be turning off the comments section.  This will allow me more time to read and enjoy your work.  This will also give me more time to tighten up my own writing.

2) I will create a page where you are welcome to communicate with me.

3) I will be going by my given name: Liz Rice-Sosne (this is needless to say, my idea).

Posted at dVerse

Syria, Syria

Tags

bashar al Assad, bombing, corruption, greed, hate, hunger, suffering, syria, tragedy, war

We did not know the young doctor and his wife.

We were sailing down the Nile and having dinner together on the upper deck twenty-two years ago. There was a warm breeze and an atmosphere of relaxed pleasure. Falucas in the distance glowed from the sun setting over their bows.

We had spent the day at Edfu with the God Horus in his temple.

Today as Syria is disintegrating, ordinary people are being bombed, raped and murdered. I think about the young doctor and his wife with whom we had dinner low those many years ago. Are they alive? Are they all right? Where are their children? She had been pregnant on that trip down the Nile.

We enjoyed one another’s company, dining together, socializing, just being. He was a good man.

In the Tomb of the Kings he was responsible for saving the life of an old man in near cardiac arrest, an old Jew.

We all played together, enriching one another’s lives taking pleasure in each other’s company for days. These were European Jews, Israelis originally from Yugoslavia, France, Italia and other countries, Jewish children, refugees of WWII and the Holocaust.

Two young Americans, two Syrians and about 6-8 old Israelis hanging out on a boat going down the Nile visiting the ancients.

Not long after awaking the next morning our boat sank. We were hung up in a series of locks while navigating a dam. When we finally pushed through, there was a gaping hole in the hull, the boat filling up with water very quickly. We were rescued by the Egyptian Navy and never saw each other again.

But I think of them today. I know that most if not all of the Israelis are gone. Then I think of the doctor as his country is in ruins. I wonder if he is alive – does he practice medicine today?

Is he an enemy of the state or a part of Bashar al Assad’s inner circle? I am sad when I think of him and his family. He gives to Syria a very real face of war in a way that the nightly news cannot do.

Two years now and 70,000 dead. Stirring and poignant headlines daily:

The Guardian: Syria: Bashar al Assad interview to be broadcast – live updates.
Milwaukee (AP): Parents talk about journalist kidnapped in Syria.
India Today: Armed and Courageous: Meet Syria’s women rebels.
Philadelphia Enquirer: The hopes and fears of secular Syrians.
USA Today: Obama warns of extremist threat in Syria.

Two years into the war and 70,000 dead. War again taking its toll on a people on its children. One man destroying an entire country, greed and power at the core of his soul.

Many have become refugees on the borders of neighboring countries, living in squalid conditions with some but little water and food.

Some have left bombed out homes and towns taking refuge in ancient forsaken cities that look bombed out themselves. They live underground in caves with dank air and little food.

They took with them remnants of their possessions; a torn blanket, a doll without her left foot, one large bent aluminum pot, a fork and spoon, glass jars and two pillows.
What will become of these people? Will the massive and significant government armed forces intent upon their destruction destroy them?

I think of the doctor, is he still alive? What side is he on? Sadness fills me yet again. Tears fall yet again for another war.

Syria, Syria another war, another loss.

This poem is posted at dVerse

Monsieur …

Tags

agatha christie, goodbyes, hercule poirot, style

This poetry prompt from dVerse to which this poem is linked is quite simply one of my all time favorites. I get to say a wee bit about one of my very favorite characters in life. Claudia thank you. You have brought to me great joy today. Funny, my next favorite person is one whom you also mention, Miss Marple. As I became older and Mummy and I went out into the country side, leaving London behind, we took a house three doors down from Jane. But that is a story for another time.

Monsieur

It is exactly as I remember it. Not surprisingly there isn’t a hanging thread or a torn carpet not even dust upon his desk.

The difference now is that two nurses are on duty at all times, each in perfectly starched uniforms without a hair out of place.

White Haven Mansions still the home to the world’s Greatest Detective, has a wonderful undulating surface that was very modern when it was first built.

I half expected to see Miss Lemon with the row of those perfect curls perhaps a bit grayed today. When the “Great Detective” was not looking Miss Lemon always gave me sweets.

She was savvy, smart, stylish, and kind to this little girl. Miss Lemon died years ago in a terrible burning car crash. This saddened many for a long while.

My thoughts bring to mind the Captain. He had a bright blue Bugatti. Mummy dined with Captain Hastings whenever she returned to London after the war.

We initially came to White Haven Mansions because of the murder, then all of those horrifying nightly threats. She sought the help of Monsieur’s “little gray cells.” I think that those little gray cells saved our lives.

Style has always been a bulwark against many great difficulties in my life. Style is the reason that I have made this last trip to London.

I use a walking stick today. Look closely and you will see the silver head upon it. This cane, for that is truly its use to me today is a replica of the one of whom I have come to say goodbye.

Forgive me, I reminisce, let us enter into the bedroom of Monsieur. His eyes are closed, yet he is perfectly dressed in navy silk bedclothes.

One thing that the nurses do for him daily is his mustache. They have caring hands. I appreciate this fact. There are now tears in my eyes, he was well loved and respected by many.

I only met Monsieur Hercule Poirot three times as a child. He had a great sense of perfection and style. He left a lasting impression upon me perhaps because he set the tone for my own style.

Saddened now, I am glad that I have come to pay my last respects. He doesn’t see me and wouldn’t remember me anyway. “Goodbye Monsieur.”

As I leave I see an old brown jacket hanging on the hall tree. I know very well that it is not Hercule Poirot’s jacket. Is it Japp’s? I remember hearing about the meal that Japp made Monsieur Poirot while Japp’s wife was away. I do believe that Japp and Poirot had somewhat different tastes in food. Never mind, Japp was a respected policemen and friend.

Photo Credit Monmatou – Gazette d’octobre

The Afghan Middle-Class

Tags

corruption, fragile peace, greed, middle-class, money, poverty

I have not written a poem in some time. I have not been inspired – and I cannot tell you why. Perhaps with age comes an inability to multitask. Perhaps I have been gathering inspiration and now it is time to write a bit.

The New York Times is my computers Home Page. Some of you know that war has long given me inspiration. Today one of the headlines is: “34,000 U.S. Troops to Exit Afghanistan Within a Year.” This headline has five photos next to it, yet they are a part of another article titled: “New Afghan Middle Class Fears for the Future.” Each photo is current. I find the first photo riveting. It is modern but looks like a painting done in the fashion of realism, but set in the latter 19th century. Poem linked to dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight Week 83.

The Afghan Middle-Class
Your country in ruins, toppled, rubble all around you.
Yet oblivious you stand at the bar ready to drink the blood of your brothers.

Yes, you are the middle class, the class that capitalism and war have built.
In your dark Brooks Brothers suit you stand at the bar Martini in hand.

Confidence gives you a slight aura of a halo. But it is the wrong color betraying your motives.
You don’t see those behind, pressing about you, men and women in tribal dress.

For you it is about the money, the power.
For them it is about little pieces of freedom.

How long will her face be uncovered, her dark glasses go un-cracked?
What peace has come to them through ten years of war?

War torn, this a country of fragmented pieces without peace yearns
To be put together and made whole. Will you rebuild with these shards, this detritus of war?

Or will the broken buildings simply become bunkers for the next battle?
As I look beyond the holes in the earth, the dusty playground, I see new tombs of the rich, ugly monolithic apartments built with acts of corruption.

They create a backdrop for war-youth playing kickball in the dust.
Afghanistan has a new and fragile middle class.

A middleclass made all the more fragile by a thin partition,
the wall pushing back against poverty, ever present.

The headline reads: “Fears of the Future Haunt a Budding Generation of Afghan Strivers.”
The strivers are in their tall semi-safely constructed compound.

They are separated from the youth playing in the dust of the street.
The strivers are mere feet from poverty. How long before they fall to the next war predator?

Always the illusion of safety, created by the money of corruption separates one from poverty, until poverty comes knocking on your door again.
Better, so much better to dismantle the wall yourself and meld with a piece of that poverty, lifting up rather than separating.

Yes, what will become of the middle-class?
The middle-class is in their wasteland.

Occupy Blogosphere Thursday – February 7th 2013

Tags

god, heart, intention, soul dipper, spirituality

It isn’t just prayer that I have been giving considerable thought too lately. I have also been thinking about the word intention. It is a word bandied about a good bit in spiritual circles lately. So what is intention? Do you think about intention? How important is intention within your life? Does it underscore all that you do? Or is intention something to which you give little thought? If it is important, what do you do with it? How does it work within your life?

I find that intention carries great strength and great weight. I would go so far as to say that intention is everything. I find that the concept of intention is so powerful that it precedes prayer. I think that it may precede all that we do. I believe it to be so powerful that perhaps intention is prayer. Intention lives in the heart and spirit, or perhaps where the two meet. But it originates in the mind. I would ask is intention the seed of all thought that becomes manifest?

Intention is a popular subject now. My reading of intention is pretty much done on the Internet. There are numerous sites that are geared towards the human spirit. Accessing information can come at great expense but it need not. I often wonder when at a site, what is the intention here? Is it to share great knowledge or is it to make gobs of money? When spirituality becomes slick, well it is no longer spiritual is it? And money can make it very slick. I said can, I did not say does. I am a great believer in “a days work, a days pay.” As intention lives within the heart, one ought know intuitively when one runs across slick spirituality. I studied and practice shamanism. I did this with an authentic shaman and twice I paid about $150. No, I took no $10,000 cruise to any exotic land for my studies. Long after my studies I went to Machu Picchu as a tourist. I did spend a morning at Machu Picchu doing ceremony with a Peruvian shaman at a small extra cost. I have a tendency to believe that spirituality and healing should not come with a hefty price tag. As I said I believe in a days work, a days pay, but not extortion.

I have never been allowed a teacher or guru or any other prophet like person to guide me. I say this because when young in my journey I would ask for one. I have always had to learn everything on my own. This makes for serious self dependence and even more serious intention.

I will share a story of intention. I have said something for a very long time, something that has offended a few as if it were directed at them, when in reality I was speaking only of myself. I used to speak of my strength and my will when it came to this conversation. This morning I realized that my will and strength had less to do with it than intention.

I come from a long heritage of mental illness. Within my immediate family there were two persons who were/are bipolar, one who is a sociopath and one who was so deeply depressed that he went to bed around his 82nd year, stopped speaking and never got up again. He lived like this for 7 years. This is not about my childhood that needless to say was ghastly. No, this is about the formation very early on of intention. I knew at a young age that I had to escape this familial habit of mental illness. I also knew that it sat next to me always ready to knock upon my door. I knew that I also wanted no part of it … and I fought long and hard to that end. I used to think early on that it was my strength and my will. Today I know that it was my intention. The seeds were planted at a young age. But it was not until I came face to face with God that the whole seed of intention was planted. Since that time it has been nurtured assiduously.

So I will ask you the questions again. What place does intention play in your life? How important is intention? What does intention mean to you?

I love the following YouTube Video. I hope that you too enjoy it.

As always thanks to Soul Dipper for initiating Occupy Thursdays.

Occupy Blogosphere January 24th, 2013

Tags

prayer

I have a question for you. Well, actually I have several questions. What is prayer? How do you pray? What are you attempting to do? Are you doing it right? What are you trying to accomplish? Are you wasting your time? Does it do any good?

My Prayer Hands, Credit: Photobucket

These are peculiar questions coming from one who used to pray in the traditional sense rather a good bit. During those times of prayer I was attempting to pray for someone or something, I had a goal and prayed for that goal. Because of my relationship with God at that time I would attempt to pray for the things that I believed God wished me to pray. This was a bit like attempting to know God’s mind. The easiest prayer time was when I was a young girl before I turned fifteen and left the Catholic Church. That act just happened to coincide with Vatican 2. As a young Catholic I just said my Hail Mary’s and whatever else was prescribed at confession and that was it. Job done. Of course everything in those days was in Latin. This did not create much of a sense of spiritual understanding or commitment within me. There was definitely something “missing.” And so my path began at quite a young age.

I have had two significant spiritual experiences each of which radically changed my life. After the second experience in 2005 I found myself online in a writing forum. This was a site where ideas were traded, stories told or politics discussed among other things. I saw that there were often two opposing sides especially during an election. The loudly professed Christians were a wild bunch. Truth be told I have never experienced or seen so much vitriol and pure hatred come from anyone towards others as I saw coming from them. I had spent many years working with those who had AIDS/HIV. This was the most rewarding work that I have ever done and I shared stories about the work. It was also something that these Christians did not like at all. These experiences had a very unsettling effect on me. I stopped referring to myself as Christian. At that time my prayer life radically changed. I am the sort of person who engages 150% and then I need a break, I am grateful God has always accepted that in me, understanding I guess, that I was tired and worn out.

I have been fascinated by the spiritual disciplines of the world for a long time. I have studied them much of my life. As a result I pretty much view religions as languages that God has given to different cultures as a means of communication between God and the culture. Meant to be languages of love they have too often become tools of war. The aspect of each discipline that held my attention was always about healing. Thus I have studied healing techniques from across the globe. I found shamanism to be the most interesting of these disciplines. It is the oldest system of healing in existence. I was prompted into formal studies of shamanism. It is a fifty thousand year old system of healing with the same techniques practiced in Lapland that are practiced within Amazonian indigenous cultures, North American indigenous cultures and around the world. They are techniques that work. Could they be a form of prayer? Is healing a form of prayer? Surely one is involved in healing because they care for others.

Many formal and scientific studies have been executed in medical settings measuring the effects of prayer upon patients. These studies can be fallible as the groups of patients who are not prayed for by study prayerists (my word) may be prayed for by family members oceans away when they were not to be receiving prayers. This is not something that could be controlled within the control group. There are studies that show prayer to be beneficial. But there are studies that show prayer not to be beneficial at all and found at times to appear to be detrimental.

I have come to believe that prayer is the channeling of love or loving energy from yourself to another or the channeling of Gods love through you to another. And I mean this literally. When in prayer I used to put my hands together. A bit later in my spiritual journey I held them upward, I think to receive energy from God. Today, I rub my hands together generating energy and then channel it to another.

Is this prayer? I don’t know. But for me at this time it is. So what is prayer to you and how do you do it?

As always linking with Soul Dipper’s Occupy Blogosphere Thursday

Occupy Blogosphere 2013 January Sixteenth

Tags

5th Dimensional Energy, hooponono, love

I have been given a job to do this year a New Year’s Resolution. It is a bit lofty. I am meant to love the world this year, quite actively. The hatred level is high right now in the USA. I find it discouraging, but I do not allow it to discourage me. The level is dangerous. But I will forge ahead for it can be done. I have since January 1st, needed to be reminded twice of my new job. And I really am working on it. The picture below was my first reminder. Shakti Ghosal’s article was my second reminder. I give you a link below to his article.

When I link the credit for the photo above, the link won’t show up. I suspect that this because it is a Facebook page. I found the photo without real credit at a group on Facebook called “Stop Workplace Bullies.”

Love is the only real way to make progress in this world … love of self, love of family members, love of society, love of all, if we wish to advance, into 5th Dimensional Energy. So thanks to Soul Dipper for bringing me to that realization before the end of 2012. Then thanks to Shakti Ghosal for bringing me back to my goal with his spectacular article: Connecticut – Delhi – Hooponono

I had wished to “Reblog” the article but I had technical difficulty Shakti has a wonderful spirit that reaches into the heart of others. He is one of great wisdom and love for mankind. I feel greatly honored to have found his blog. Please read the article. It will bless you.

Change and Reminiscences

Tags

change, Happy New Year, new year, Reminiscences

Photo Credit: MorgueFiles
Sydney Opera House

I find that I am often late to the bar.
Too late for Mr. Linky, to late to join in the fray.

Last week I read the most wonderful of sentences,
it was a quote, by Jacqueline Kennedy.

She spoke of being odd man out wherever she went.
She was the oddball, never really accepted.

Her words thrilled me. I read them over and pondered.
She was just like me; I knew exactly how she felt.

So will you think it odd of me to share a life lived long ago?
And remember … this is Claudia’s doing.

Not to beleaguer the point but Claudia has written a marvelous poem of Paris
within which I reminisced.

I love Paris. In this lifetime I have been there twice.
But that first visit, its poignancy was just too much.

For so long I had longed to go back.
That longing coming from another lifetime lived so long ago.

I am particularly partial to the early twentieth century.
I can recall so many friends from that time. It is so real that it is like yesterday.

I have so many feelings that come to me when I think about my life during that time.
It is so real.

I wanted to sit next to Hemingway at the bar in the Ritz as we had done so long ago.
I couldn’t wait to meet up again with so many old friends. I would visit Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare and Company.

You do know don’t you that she sold nothing but books printed in English. However her great love,
Adrienne Monnier sold books printed only in French.

They were such a team. I loved visiting them.
Sylvia always invited me in for tea, this meant meeting new and exciting authors. I met Joyce. What a strange duck.

My library is currently filled with the biographies and autobiographies of those friends. I have always kept them around me.
Nathalie Clifford Barney threw the wildest of parties. Romaine in the background quiet, Gertrude and Alice the center of attention.

It bothered me, the rift between Hemingway and Gertrude for they had been such very good friends.
But here I go reminiscing again. Thinking about lives past, missing old friends.

On our first trip to Paris in ninety-four David said to me: “I expect you to remember places that you visited in the 20’s.
You know, I did not remember a thing. There was not even a sense of familiarity. It was really disappointing.

Now Claudia has reared her head again with a wonderful prompt for the New Year.
What better a prompt than change?

My change for the New Year will be to commit myself to a project.
I need to do something with my mother’s WWII scrapbooks.

I will place each photo and each piece of paper into an archival sleeve
and I will catalogue all that is contained there in.

I will not however give up poetry. It is too close to my soul.
And yes, I will write more memoire. I will write.

Though this is not a change, I will express much gratitude for the life that I live.
So saying; Happy New Year to all, Happy Changes. You will do it, I know. It will be splendid.

You will find us over at dVerse Poetry Pub in Changes and Turns