High angle shot: we see the main character,
dressed in boots, a pale orange sweater
and a brown cowboy hat, emerging slowly
from a theater with a throng of others.
She looks small, vulnerable. Close up: reveals
she’s been crying, no, is still crying, but perhaps
trying not to cry. Medium shot. A beautiful young woman,
late teens, in a gray t-shirt, long brown hair floating loose
around her shoulders, comforts the main character.
Asks her if she would like to go for a walk instead
of getting back in line to see another film.
The main character shakes her head, then nods,
laughs, even as the tears continue to fall. Insists
that even though she cries so much, the movie
that would be made about her is a comedy.
The young woman rolls her eyes, nods,
takes the woman in the hat by the hand, walks her
away from the crowd. Long shot reveals they are
in high mountains, the aspen not yet changing,
but there’s a golden hue to their green. Above the aspen,
the spruce are thick, and above tree line, the sheer cliffs
tower, red and gray, shadowed, then spangled with the kind
of light you see in movies but can’t imagine
in your own life. But it is her own life. And she walks
with the smiling but serious young woman who is her daughter
through the unbearably beautiful set. The camera shot
changes to her point of view, focusing on the small brown bird
that sits on a railing beside her, then on the green leaves fluttering
above them, then on her own hand twined with her daughter’s,
the touch light and familiar. There are no lines for this scene
in which she wonders how she ever got lucky enough to nab
this leading role and the supporting role in this other story.
After the preparation, the letting go.
So much is about to change.
She’s determined to give it her everything.
Posts Tagged ‘letting go’
Leaving the Film Festival the Day Before My Daughter Leaves for College
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged character, cinema, college, daughter, letting go, mother, movie, perspective on September 7, 2026| 4 Comments »
Fledgling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, college, daughter, graduation, heartbreak, letting go, mother on August 3, 2026| 11 Comments »
Now that I know for certain she will leave me,
I dare to love her more. Her room will be empty.
The house no longer filled with her music.
The spilling trills of her laughter too far away to hear.
I have known since her birth she would leave me,
but knowing is different from feeling, and her absence
comes so soon. At the same time the heart lets her go,
lets her go, lets her go, it leans in closer, becomes a sanctuary
that knows no walls, a nest as wide as the world.
At the same time I release her, I fall more deeply in love
with the way she croons to her cat, with the feathery softness
of her skin, with how a song is ever winging from her lips.
I welcome it, this ache. These tears were always meant
to be cried. This heart was always meant to break.
As It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collecting, heartsong, leaving things, letting go, rocks on June 23, 2026| 2 Comments »
I see them everywhere, hearts.
In cumulous clouds and sunflower leaves.
In thinly sliced strawberries
and the dark hollow of a split hickory nut.
I see them in white bird shit splatted on a bench,
these symmetrical kissing curves
designated as an ideograph for love.
And how many hundreds of heart rocks
have I slipped into my pockets to bring home
like sedimentary and igneous proofs
of love manifest in matter.
I don’t know when I stopped collecting
the rocks, finding more joy in picking
them up and displaying them trailside
so others could delight in them, too.
Later, I took pictures of the hearts
where I found them, wanting not to disturb,
perhaps trusting that love shows up
exactly where it is needed most.
Now, when I see them,
I will most likely smile to myself
as I walk by, no longer needing
to stockpile or keep a record.
Still, it surprises me every time,
the joy of loving things just as they are,
the joy of leaving things whole.
Two Thousand Three Hundred Forty
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, food, graduation, letting go, love, lunch, mother, school on May 22, 2026| 4 Comments »
That’s how many school lunches
I’ve made her, more or less, since
that first day she held my hand and we
stood on the grass outside the elementary school
before the first bell rang. Her hair was blonde then,
mine not gray. I’m not crying as I make her
lunch this morning. Dilled bean and rice salad.
Fresh blackberries. Pretzel sticks.
Honeycrisp apples sliced into thin rounds
that her friends call “floppy apples.”
Maybe I’m crying.
Me and all the other mothers on the last
day of the last year of school. Thinking of
two thousand three hundred forty bleary mornings
when I woke to pour love into plastic containers
along with dried mango and tofu cubes,
seaweed strips and yogurt tubes.
Okay. So I’m crying. I nibble the squared off core
of the apple to gather every last bit of sweetness.
When it’s gone, I lick the stickiness from my fingers.
Give Up Rosemerry, He Wrote in His Letter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged identity, letting go, surrender on January 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »
with thanks to Zhim
In fact, he didn’t write my name.
In fact, he wrote his own.
Inserting my own name came naturally.
Give up Rosemerry.
How thrilling the sentence became.
“A balancing counterweight,” he wrote,
“for a being who has extreme passion.”
The words swirl in me like a storm.
On a day when the news is of conquering,
this simple direction toward surrender.
I become a student of snow.
Give up Rosemerry. Give up.
What beauty arrives as I let go?
What Leaves Us
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clouds, letting go, naming, sunset on December 9, 2025| 2 Comments »
Once I knew the names for these clouds,
rounded, puffy and rolling.
I rush out the back door
to see them gather in the west
turning vibrant rose and dusky rose and
deeper shades of darkened rose,
and the only word that rises is “oh!”
I remember how I loved the naming.
Now I love the clouds. How they
sow light in the wild blue fields of sky
and invite every dark thing in me
to look up and be part of the beauty
without trying to own it, to practice
loving what is beautiful knowing
for certain it will go.
One Encouraged by the Leaves
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kite, letting go, self, story on October 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
flying the story of myself
like a kite in the wind—
can I let go of the string
The Holding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daily, daughter, holding, letting go, moment, morning, mother on October 17, 2025| 6 Comments »
for Vivian
Just today, you asked me
to hold the front door open,
your own hands too full
with a peach smoothie,
a cup of tea, your backpack
and dance bag and lunch box.
It gave me such joy,
this small act of service,
though now I also see it
as practice in letting you go.
I followed you out the door
into the frost-limned world,
yellow leaves falling before
the sun had yet risen.
It would be easy to forget
this moment with you.
We didn’t even pause
to enjoy it, just inhaled
the chill morning air,
both of us mumbling
how glorious it was
before you walked to the car
and I walked back inside.
Now, I see they’re everything,
these slim moments we share,
for a day is slim and a
year is slim, and soon your whole
childhood will also seem
slim. I hold them to me
like treasure, these slender
chapters, charged as they are
with beauty, hold them to me
even as I practice letting you go.
While Thinking About Letting Go
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, dead, holding, jay, letting go, sunflower on October 16, 2025| 6 Comments »
I hold a sunflower in my heart,
not in golden bloom, but filled
with small, dry seeds,
a desiccated husk of a disk, brittle
and brown. I hold it here
as a reminder some gifts
look unwanted at first.
I remember the autumn afternoon
I went to pull the dead remains
from the garden, then watched
as the Stellar’s jays landed
atop the tall dark stalks
and feasted. So I let the row
stand instead of clearing it away.
In my attempts to remove
what seemed no longer useful,
I almost missed this chance
to see the Stellar’s Jays balance
on the tips of the plants,
their bodies a blue exultation of wing.
What else have I tried to clear
from my heart too soon? How
easy to miss what is still nourishing.
Out my window, the jays gather
at the banquet of what is dead.
I am learning the wisdom of holding.
In the Dark of the Cinema
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged audience, cinema, daughter, film, letting go, mother, movie, snuggling on September 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »
My daughter dangles
her legs over mine.
I rest my head on her
shoulder. Is it true
every film is an exploration
of how growth depends
on letting something go?
Or is it simply the glasses
I wear, lenses grubby
from tears, that make it
seem this way? All I know
is it’s easier to practice
letting go when
we’re curled in together,
her hand pressed into mine,
tears sliding down
both of our cheeks,
scent of popcorn
thick in the air,
and all around us
others sniffling, too,
the light blue against
our upturned faces.
Just Before We Say Goodbye
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hiking, letting go, mother, presence, time on July 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The song we’ve been singing
is gone from the air.
We walk in satisfied silence now.
And it’s beautiful,
the trail lined with sego lilies
and purple fireweed.
This morning’s raindrops
cling to leaves.
How easy it is in this moment
to believe in forever,
the wild roses
endlessly blooming,
the sound of your footsteps
keeping time in front of mine.
One Role Model
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, river on May 15, 2025| 4 Comments »
leaf sinks to the bottom—
even the river too tired
to hold up everything
In the dream I discover
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, dream, letting go on September 22, 2024| 8 Comments »
I’ve left all the bunnies
in a cupboard for two days.
Why would I put them
in a cupboard?
How is it I forgot them
after rescuing them?
They tumble out, every
shape, size and shade of bunny
and I fall in love with them all
as they explore the room.
They seem no worse for my lapse,
but I am so distraught,
my husband wakes me from
sleep as I whimper.
Hours later, I still wonder
what precious and vital thing
have I locked away?
I don’t want to wake up
to my life tomorrow or next year
or ever to discover I have
not cared for the treasure
entrusted to me. All day,
there are no rabbits, no cupboards,
no locks. Only this life
with its tendernesses,
its vulnerabilities. All day,
I open every door
of the mind, of the heart.
No doubt there are more I can’t find.
I feel for the doors with the fingers
of my heart. Whatever’s inside,
I want it to breathe.
Everything seems
to depend on this:
not only that I care
for the treasure,
but that I let it free.
Putting My Daughter on the Plane to Guatemala
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, daughter, fear, letting go, parenting, travel, trust on August 12, 2024| 9 Comments »
I would like to say I wasn’t afraid,
but I was. I know too well how a plane
can fall from the sky. How terrible
things happen to innocent people.
How even when we try our hardest
to keep others safe, they can die.
Driving toward home, I was a snail
without its shell, a seed without its husk,
a woman alone in the dark with her fear.
I remember thinking if I needed to,
I could live through any future disaster,
even my worst nightmare.
But what I really needed was
to live in that very moment.
The more I was right where I was,
the more I felt the mystery around
and inside me, swirling until I was bigger
somehow, no less afraid but more spacious,
And though the world did not comfort me,
I felt myself soften as I flowed toward
the inevitable—flowed the way a river flows,
moved the way the wind moves,
grew the way a woman grows
when she meets the world that is here.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Now That the Stakes Are Low
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, garden, letting go, rabbit, release on July 10, 2024| 11 Comments »
For the fourth time in four weeks,
I slip my spade into the dark soil
of the half-circle garden.
I make twenty shallow holes,
then lift the pansies from crinkly
plastic containers and drop
the root-bound squares into the earth.
Within hours, the small brown bunny
arrives with his pink twitchy nose
and his small round lump
of soft bunny body,
and while I wash dishes
I meet through the window
his innocent, unblinking gaze
as he consumes a dozen
deep purple petals
in small, efficient tugs.
He looks at me as if to say,
You love me. And I do.
I croon at the bunny how
cute his small ears. How perfect
his bliss. How good he is
for eating his pretty bunny food.
Tomorrow, the rest
of the blooms will be gone.
In a week, the leaves will
be gone, too. Every. Single. One.
And I will go buy more pansies.
How sweet it’s become,
this path of surrender,
the strange joy that rises in me
when I see my precious pansies
nibbled to the roots.
Now that the stakes are low,
it’s much easier to bow
to the way things are.
For the price of pansies,
I can practice again and again
how to find true delight
in this art of letting go.
Song of the Spool
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, letting go, parenting, spool, usefulness, yarn on February 8, 2024| 4 Comments »
for Vivian
I want to love you
the way the spool
loves the yarn.
For a time, the spool
gives the yarn shape
before the yarn becomes
its own beautiful form—
a sweater, a sock, a blanket,
something warm,
perhaps soft.
No one thinks then
of the work of the spool.
There is a part of me,
who does not want
to be forgotten.
But I know what it’s like
to be close to you,
wrapped in you,
then slowly spun out
as I let you go.
There’s more joy
in being useful
than I could have known,
bittersweet joy in the unwinding,
true joy in watching you
become more yourself,
true joy in watching you grow.
Tonight I Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, letting go, loss, memory, shoes on November 16, 2023| 18 Comments »
how he resisted learning
to tie his own shoes,
how I cheered
when he learned
to pinch the laces
between his fingers,
knotting and looping
and pulling them tight,
making a bow
that would stay.
How I encouraged
the very thing
that allowed him
to walk away.
Oh, sweet woman
I was then,
beginning to learn
letting go.
Now that he’s gone,
I’m a student
of being loosened,
untied, undone,
still practicing
how to let him go.
On Earth Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Earth Day, letting go, nature on April 23, 2023| 2 Comments »
We walk on the back road
through ponderosa forest
laughing and singing for hours,
and the sky comes down
in tiny white balls
shaped like flowers
that land in our hands
and melt into our gloves.
We don’t get to hold anything
for long—not the snow,
not this fabulous day
with its freedom,
its braiding streams, its mud.
We don’t even get to hold
each other, not forever,
though we try—
but for these hours,
surrounded by trickle and trill,
I feel how surely we are held
by the scent of spring,
by the shadows, by the deer,
by the jay’s bright squawk,
by the sun breaking through.
At Last
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, life, peach on August 10, 2022| 2 Comments »
After a week, at last the peaches
on the counter smell like peaches,
their sweet summer scent reaching
across the room to where I sit
trying to balance numbers.
The scent is like a flirty lover
who won’t take no for answer,
who trails fingertips down my cheek
and neck and lightly tugs at my collar,
then tilts my head back
to whisper into my ear,
Isn’t there something you’d rather
be doing, my dear?
And damn if I’m not distracted
and hungry and all I want
is to sink my teeth into peach
and that’s what I do.
So much of life feels like letting go,
but tonight life says,
Pick me up, sweetheart. Take me in.
And the gold sticky juice
runs all over those numbers.
I lick my fingers clean.
Watching Myself as I Learn to Let Go
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, why on April 24, 2022| 10 Comments »
She remembers how at the orchard
the wind would sometimes
rip the ripening fruit from the trees.
Not because it was cruel.
It was wind doing what wind does.
And life does what life does.
It takes. It gives. It takes. It gives.
Not because life is cruel or generous,
but because it is life.
Look how the word why forms on her lips—
look how saying the word
requires a small pucker like a kiss.
She doesn’t seem to expect an answer.
Perhaps she is practicing
how to lean into the silence that always follows
when she asks the unanswerable.
Perhaps she is practicing how to kiss the unknown.
If she could have stopped the wind from blowing,
she would have. If she could have stopped
her son from dying, her father from dying,
her friend from dying, she would have.
Instead, she is learning this:
no matter how much she does,
no matter how good, how quick,
how noble, how loving, how well-intentioned,
life will do what life does.
And still the invitation
to bring to every moment her best,
which is to say whatever
the moment asks of her.
See her hair blow in the wind.
The only thing she can do
is choose to notice the place within
that remains still no matter
how hard the wind blows.
Perhaps she will learn how this stillness, too,
is life doing what life does.