We are laughing, and the sound
is sweet as honeysuckle—
the way it clings to the air—
and even as I laugh,
I’m aware of the many wounds
each of these women
have endured, imagining
how often we have wept,
sometimes with each other,
sometimes alone. Knowing
the ache somehow makes
the laughter all the more sweet—
and the joy of it stitches into me
like a golden thread.
I welcome the pierce
as I feel it connect us,
knowing if I tug on this strand
twenty years from now,
it will bring me back to this night
with its warm summer air
and low summer light,
this radiant night sparkling
with a laughter we nourished
for years by loving each other
through all those tears.
Posts Tagged ‘friendship’
Sitting in a Circle of Friends
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, laughter, Lisa Issenberg, paradox, togetherness on July 20, 2025| 2 Comments »
In Times Such as These
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, friendship, trust on May 2, 2025| 6 Comments »
In the night dark room
we sit together and speak
in tones tender enough
for anything to be said,
even vast things
that frighten us most,
even shimmery things
that surprise us,
and the night is a spindle
that twines the honesty
and courage of our words
into yarn, and trust is a needle
that uses the yarn
to stitch us together
so even when we are apart,
I can tug on one of those stitches
and, from half a country away,
I feel you tugging back.
One Interconnectedness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cause and effect, connection, friendship, interconnectedness, legacy on May 1, 2025| 6 Comments »
because
you,
me
The Bear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, gift on April 30, 2025| 2 Comments »
for Linda Keetch
In a room where I have never been,
I walk in to find a small brown teddy bear
sits on a couch. Envelope in his lap.
On the envelope, my name.
There are thousands, maybe millions
of ways people show up to say
I am here to help you carry
the weight of your life.
This is how a light tan bear
who sits at eight inches tall
is big enough to embody
a forest-sized compassion.
This is how the soft plush of his belly
becomes a wide portal
through which love can reach
to meet us exactly as we are,
which changes nothing
and everything.
This moment I want to remember,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bathing, friendship, joy, seeing, vulnerability on April 29, 2025| 4 Comments »
when my friend filled the giant
white stone resin tub with great mounds
of frothy eucalyptus lemon
scented bubbles and water as hot
as she could stand and I walked in
to find her laughing, laughing!
head thrown back and eyes alive
with her great luck to find herself
here “in a millionaire’s bathtub,”
her giddy giggles ricocheting
around the tiled room, radiating
gladness and naked joy, and though
only her head was visible above the bubbles,
I saw her, really saw her as herself,
the uncurated version—that glorious
creature we so seldom chance to glimpse
in each other. As I walked away, her voice
followed me up the stairs, full-throated
and citrus bright as she sang out
her bliss, the words indecipherable,
the tune a tune I’d never heard before
but somehow knew by heart.
Sitting Beside the Meyer Lemon Tree with Sherry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, identity, legacy effect on April 28, 2025| 8 Comments »
I wasn’t thinking about the roots.
I was thinking of the intensely sweet
perfume, both heavy and bright
in the cool spring air.
I was thinking how much scent
comes from such small creamy flowers,
and how I wanted to save this floral
fragrance like a portal for remembering Sherry
in her black and white boots,
her red poppy necklace, her red spectacles,
and the conversation we had earlier
about what she called “The Legacy Effect”
in which we honor how events
and actions from long ago
still affect who we are today—
like the way she longs to find
the woman from college
who scrunched down her ankle socks
instead of folding them neatly down.
Sherry wants to write her a thank you letter
for changing the way she saw the world—
starting with her socks!
Enamored as I was with the lemon tree scent,
only later did it occur to me to thank not just
the flowers but the roots—shallow and fibrous.
How many roots are inside each of us,
spreading way beyond our own canopy?
How long would the thank you list be
if we named everyone and everything
that made us who we are? How invisible
and essential. Our perfume is their legacy.
The Gathering
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, glass, laughter, sea, softening on April 27, 2025| 3 Comments »
for Ali and Sherry
Laughter, it softens us,
just hours ago I was
broken glass, but now
after giggling through
dinner and flopping
on the unmade bed
it’s as if I’ve been tumbled
in a warm and shallow sea,
waves of laughter doing
what waves do—
rubbing my sharp edges
against the grit of life
until I feel like a treasure,
like something that belongs
here in your hands.
What I Heard Her Say
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, immensity, pep talk, self actualization, self awareness on April 23, 2025| 7 Comments »
with thanks to Kayleen
It is true, you are too much for some—
especially those who have not yet learned
they carry the sea inside them. Especially
those who still want to fit their lives
into small, dry boxes with tight-fitting tops.
But there will be some who desperately need you
to show up every bit as immense as you are,
not one drop smaller, need you to be unashamedly
vast and deep and full of strange things
neither you nor they can understand.
Maybe it’s just one person who needs you
to be that big. Maybe that person is you.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
After Not Seeing Her for a Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, how it is, love, missing, song, straight talk on March 27, 2025| 2 Comments »
for Deb
I held the tall and solid
song of her in my arms,
held her the way
a note clings to a staff,
as if for a moment,
I could anchor myself
to the years of shared
laughter. I miss you,
I said. And she said,
That is how it is.
What a gift, these five words.
They did not try to fix,
nor did they ignore
the ache of missing.
As if she were helping me
rekey my thoughts into bitonality—
a melody written in love
with a harmony written
in ache. For a while longer
then, I held her because
I could. And moments
later I rehearsed again
how to let her go.
No part of it
was not beautiful.
Meeting Intimidation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, friendship, intimidation on March 13, 2025| 4 Comments »
What if, in that moment when Wendy introduced us,
I had not been afraid to say more than hello?
What if I had not turned toward someone else
as if I had something I needed to say to them.
A week later, it’s so easy to see what I was doing
was turning away from the woman who,
through no fault of her own, daunted me.
What if I’d decided it was okay to feel afraid
and I invited myself to be uncomfortable
and stay with the interaction anyway?
What if I had asked her a question, any
open and honest question, such as,
“What felt good to you about tonight?”
Or, “How does it feel to be here?”
What if I had said nothing at all, and simply
offered her my awkward but honest attention?
How often do I let my fear make choices for me?
How much is lost in these moments of cowardice?
A chance for connection? A chance to meet
the small and uneasy parts of me that I would rather
hide from? A chance to see through my defenses?
A chance to be surprised by how generous
the world can be when I don’t turn away?
Strange But True Ways We Connect, Part I
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cats, commerce, commercial, friendship, singing on March 10, 2025| 6 Comments »
It was Daiva, curled in the armchair like a cat,
who began to sing the seventies’ jingle for Meow Mix,
meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow,
and instantly we all joined her as if we were singing
the national anthem, or Happy Birthday, or Old Lang Syne—
simple joy in the simple tune that brought us back to,
what, Saturday morning cartoons? To a time when
life seemed playful as a tabby cat singing for its meal?
Such cheap joy in this one-word lyric, almost embarrassing,
really, the intense pleasure in this commercial riff
that somehow sewed itself into our memory,
so much joy we rolled on the floor in laughter,
holding our sides as if to keep all that pleasure
from spilling out, but spill out it did, innocent and silly,
as if we knew we were being played by ad men, but didn’t care,
as if laughter itself is the most potent of currencies
when shared, as if by singing a song together—
whether jingle or anthem—the singing itself is what
helps us come closer to each other’s humanity.
And so, days later, when Daiva sends a two-word email
that begins with, MEOW, my heart opens. And though she’s
far away, I hear her giggle and I sing along.
Reciting Hopkins by Heart with Peter and Gabriel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blank verse, friendship, gerard manley hopkins, reciting poetry, sonnet on December 23, 2024| 3 Comments »
The first few words we all knew well, but then
we stumbled, stuttered, reached for precious lines,
our halting voices so unlike the smooth
and sweeping windhover that Hopkins wrote
about. And still, despite our bumbling,
despite our clumsy starts and awkward spurts,
an ecstasy of plume still winged through our
attempts. The language sang, its embers glowed,
its music stirred vermillion. And our eyes
were shining, too. No wonder of it: even
plodding, ploughing fields can make the soil
gleam. With love, we ploughed that sonnet’s lines
until they shined, until the air between
us plumed and swooped, until we, too, were shining.
here, friends, is the poem we were reciting.
No Wonder I Woke Singing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, friendship, grief, singing on December 5, 2024| 11 Comments »
for Donna
I saw you last night in my dream.
We were singing, of course.
The strange part is we were floating
in inner tubes in your home
which was flooded. I was worried,
but you didn’t seem bothered.
The smile never left your face.
The water was clear and we could see
to the bottom where the rugs
and chairs and tables were still in place.
We paddled around the room
and sang with our friends. God,
it was good to sing with you again,
me still here in the flood of the world
and you teaching me to sing
through it all. Teaching me
smiling is still possible. Teaching me
even the weight of grief can float.
The Gift of Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, friendship, pomegranate, self-discovery on November 19, 2024| 8 Comments »
There is that moment when,
after tugging and twisting,
the thick rind of the pomegranate
simply splits in half to reveal
the deep red seeds snuggled inside.
That’s what it’s like when you
meet me with your rich laugh
and gentle questions,
and whatever tough skin
I’ve developed cracks and gives,
and though there’s a moment
of shock at the opening,
I’m astonished myself
to see the treasure hiding within—
how could I not have known?
For this we need each other.
There are parts of ourselves
we could never see alone.
Reciting Poems to Each Other in a Difficult Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, connection, friendship, poetry, reciting poetry on November 9, 2024| 9 Comments »
It might have looked as if we stayed
in our respective squares—
nine separate rooms made of pixels—
but for an hour the poems we shared leaped
through the screen and into our bloodstream
until all our lines were gloriously blurred
and our wounds were gently tended
by the medicine of Berry’s dayblind stars
and Wellwood’s ferocious dance of no hope,
Hopkins’s shining from shook foil
and Roethke’s wondering Which I is I?
In another time, there would have been
a fire at the center. Someone would play a drum.
But in this time, I felt it inside me, the fire,
as poems blazed to meet the great cold.
I felt it inside me, the human drum,
that reminds me the heart beats
not for itself, but the world.
For an hour we spooned each other
the honey of poetry. Alone now,
I still taste it, unfiltered and raw,
this astonishing sweetness on my lips,
this salt of lyric communion
still feel the warmth of that blaze,
the spark still dazzling in the dark.
On the Night Before Your Surgery
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, surgery on October 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »
while one hand
brushes my teeth,
the other reaches
to your room far away
to cradle your heart
as you sleep
We Are Told to Make Our Own Way
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Brooke McNamara, follower, friendship, leader, nature, path on September 18, 2024| 10 Comments »
But also, I consider the importance
of following, as today
when Brooke guided me
through dense plots of homes,
past tall dead trees
where red-tailed hawks
like to land, then down
through the shrubs
on the thin dirt path
to where we crossed the creek
on three rough stones
only to climb into a park
of manicured grass,
and I was aware of how good it is
to be led by someone I trust,
to see paths I would never
have found, to wander in fields
full of someone else’s stories.
How grateful I am
for all who have led me
through the fields of their hearts,
beneath the branches of their losses,
into the alleys of their wonder.
How grateful I am for the times
the journey was made possible
because someone extended their hand
and led me toward exactly what
I could not have known
I longed to move toward.
for Brooke McNamara
Before Turning Toward Light Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged altar, friendship, healing, light, shadow on September 14, 2024| 6 Comments »
for K
On the altar of healing,
I would place a blade
of grass to represent tonight
lying in the fresh cut lawn.
You in the cooling shade.
Me in the low, warm sun.
The late summer green.
Distant hum of river.
Your tear as it slipped
toward the grass.
Our laughter about
I don’t even know what.
The way the earth held us,
asking nothing in return.
Your knees on my knees
as we curled in for warmth.
Your fear. My fear. Your trust.
My trust. The way we could
say and hear anything—
anything at all—as the world
turned slowly toward dusk.
What a Friendship Can Do
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, connection, daughter, friendship, love, mother on August 18, 2024| 7 Comments »
for V, L, C and M
They know they are beautiful.
The way late-summer snapdragons
know they are beautiful, whether
they’re budded or blossoming
or making new seed. The way
the sky knows it’s beautiful whether
it’s wearing the pink silks of dawn,
the deep blue shift of midday or
the soft black drapes of night.
They walk down the street and
a wake of laughter follows them.
Even their shadows, joined
by the hip, are beautiful.
Everywhere they go, the world
seems to open. They are not beautiful
the way cruelty is sometimes beautiful—
shiny, powerful, seductive.
They are beautiful the way only
love is beautiful—as if there is
a golden thread that connects them
to each other, to everything they touch.
In Common
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, dusk, friendship, nature on August 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »
for Holiday and Christie
In golden light we walk
beneath the slippery elm
and the hackberry tree,
and the air is warm
and thick with the hum
of winged things. If our lives
are made of a collection
of moments, it thrills me
that we are now all three
made of this: the slant light
of summer, the lavish green,
the thick warm air, our honest
laughter, and the brightness
that gathers to greatness
and flares just before the night.