what the gargoyles (and we) saw from Notre Dame’s tower
Today is Theodore Roethke’s birthday, and Memorial day.
And 3 weeks since she left us.
He said, “Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It’s what everything else isn’t.”
He wrote and I share with you, while thinking of Leslie, not in haste — in the name of Art, of Love, of the courage to stay with what really matters, present with that intensity of grief and of joy:
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I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
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She was lovely, yet she was tough. She had a way with all animals, she loved and taught me to appreciate the smallest of creatures – especially birds. She had a way of accepting everyone and everything, yet questioning, as well, in a strikingly dispassionate way — playing devil’s advocate, wanting the truth.
She communed with growing things. I remember talking to her once by phone, me in MA, she in CA – she was telling me about how her garden held here where she lived — the avocado trees growing in her yard – her voice full of joy, amazement at what was growing right there, where she was.
No one can tell me that anything is ‘just random’, including the people that come into my life. She appeared, from Australia no less, in the Boston Ashram at a time when I had put in many years doing my spiritual practices, yet feeling a waning of joy and inspiration — what I felt should be growing. She was refreshing. We talked, we communed, even traveled to Paris more than once. I realized from our exchanges that it was time for me to leave that community, to become more ‘me’. I think I may still have been there without her friendship, love, conversation. I would not be where I am today without her.
I think of how my relationships have often, if not always, helped me make huge transitions from one plane of life to the next. As if we show up to help each other — and I think we do, having done it over and over again, lifetime after lifetime. She was startling to me, calm, sweet, funny. She has a tremendous heart, that sweetness that only an old soul knows — that calm wisdom with a steely strength wrought in white hot blast furnace heat, pressure, cooling — the phoenix heart that rises over and over again. The broken heart that opens more with each breaking…
I try to imagine where she’s been & where she’s going. Her leaving has already taught me about losing those we love. I miss her so much, then feel that she’s moved on to other work — as if she’s here but not here — only in the next room. Harder to miss her when she’s still here ;^).
I have this photo I took of her at the computer — a candid. Sitting on the office chair in her worn jeans, in pretzle pose, hair thick and wild, enraptured by what she was reading and thinking. I snapped it from the hallway. It’s a dark shot, almost just an outline. I put it in a frame in the kitchen and as I realized that she wasn’t really ‘gone’ — walking by it reminds me that she’s working ‘in the next realm’ , not so far away — as if loss is an illusion.
I remember much of our last visit, written elsewhere, written in stages, still being remembered. But what I want to remember here, of that visit — & maybe we both knew it was the last — is just feeling glad to be there, to see her, to laugh a bit despite what we knew might happen. It had been 9 years and there, seeing each other, in the moment, we felt it had been too long.
In 1998 we were ‘young’ — we grew together. What adventures we had! Paris x’s 3, fixing up Arthur’s house, innumerable trips to Home Depot, living in that room together with the pups, the Yahoo group drama, coffee and more coffee. Remember the snow plow bashing your Mom’s bushes at 3 am? Those beautiful winter fires, staying up all night watching the century change, stowing ’supplies’ to survive Y2K ;^). “I am a Hindu.” The time the power went out and you all came to my studio for the night. Iggy. The corn snake. Hacking at roots in the backyard. Snow on the pines out every window – oh, then the pipes freezing. You had my back when it mattered. Thank you.
Later, you were there by phone every night of my last break up. Later, you did not want to trouble me with your feeling ill. You rooted for my schooling. Your admiration embarrassed me.
You help me realize how we, as souls, show up for each other, for significant challenges in life. We see each other through what we very well may not have been able to face alone, or even begin.
Now there is only all there ever needs to be – love.
