When the Unimpaired Look On With Envy

I came across a poem today, “I Tell You” by Susan Glassmeyer, that described the incredible love a man showed to his wife after her stroke, “one branch of her body a petrified silence.” The poem, written from the point of view of an observer looking on, included the line, “While we the unimpaired looked on with envy…”

I remember this when I was sick. How people liked to come and be with me because I had been lifted out of the mundane world of doing and obligations, schedules and busyness. The trappings of daily life had fallen away and I was living in the underworld, seeing across a vast open plain. Access to that plain only came by passing through the bottleneck of pain and discomfort, isolation and loneliness, nausea and vertigo and taste buds gone bad. Access to that plain came from facing death and opening my hands wide, fingers splayed with lots of space between.  Some people were afraid and stayed away. Others came to visit and sat by my bed. They wanted to drink me in. They wanted to touch the place I was touching and hoped they could do it through me.

My Excuse

I read my students this lovely poem by Edwin Romond:
 
Letter to My Principal
 
I came to school late today
and I am sorry
I do remember your note
about my punctuality
but a calf was born last night
and I found him blinking
into his first morning.
And Sir,
he was so tiny and white
like a dab of marshmallow
upon the spearmint grass.
So, please understand
I was caught in a sunrise
so gold it change our barn
to pink and sponged the dew
where the calf lay startled
at the light after life
in the black pond of the womb.
I was set to leave, I swear I was
but his mother, her eyes dark
plums, began to bathe him
with her tongue
moving like a paint brush
up and down his milky face.
And when he gazed at me
and mooed like a nervous bassoon
what could I do but stay
until he stood on his own
and began to tiptoe
as if the grass were eggs.
 
Edwin Romond
 
Then I gave them this writing prompt: “Now write an excuse of your own.”
 
Here’s what I came up with:
 

A Poem for Those Facing Illness

To everyone who is sick or has ever faced serious illness, here's a fabulous poem by Irish poet, John O'Donohue:

A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illness
 
Now is the time of dark
invitation
beyond a frontier that
you did not expect.
Abruptly your old life
seems distant.
You barely noticed how
each day opened
a path through fields
never questioned
yet expected deep down
to hold treasure.
 
Now your time on earth
becomes full of threat.
Before your eyes your
future shrinks.
You lived absorbed in
the day to day so continuous
with everything around
you that you could forget
you were separate.
 
Now this dark companion
has come between you.
Distances have opened in
your eyes.
You feel that against
your will
A stranger has married
your heart.
Nothing before has made
you feel so isolated
and lost.

The Couch Potato Rises From Slumber

The night I signed up for the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, I knew right away how I'd   advertise to raise the money. I made posters and postcards that featured a color photo of me a couple of months post-chemo and a headline that screamed across the top: Couch Potato Pledges to Walk 60 Miles in 3 Days.

The claim was not an exaggeration. I’ve always leaned toward the sedentary. I’m not a sit around, eat chips, and drink beer in front of the TV couch potato; I am more the high tech variety—the hunch in front of the computer and lose track of time couch potato. Hours can go by while I read articles online, write my blog, create lesson plans, check email or tinker with my website. Did I forget to stretch? To eat? To pee? Oops.

During the past twenty years, I have had periods when I've walked to the beach every morning, often before first light, but after consistently walking for weeks or months, something happens and I start staying up late and “sleeping in” (in my house this means getting up at 6:30). Quite easily, I slip back into couch potato mode.

Never having been athletically oriented, training for the Walk was a major challenge, but since I had a concrete goal and a meaningful purpose, I was able to successfully complete my training. Obsessively marching toward a goal is something I’m very good at.