The woman in 7D reads me an essay
she wrote for her husband in 7E
about how they first met at a party
when his hair was dark and thick.
He is bald now. She is gray, as am I,
but in those moments before take off
we three thrum with the thrill of that first
uncertain glimpse, and I enter the Hollywood
party with them, him in yellow suspenders,
her riding high on recent success.
They were strangers twenty minutes ago,
but now I am cheering for them—
for the people they were almost forty years ago
as they went out for coffee, then talked
through the night. Cheering, too, for who
they are now, no longer strangers, but Ellen and Bruce,
a writer and retired architect, who will likely
never remember meeting the woman in 7F,
but for tonight, something unspeakably lovely
happens as we fly over Chicago and Detroit
and we are woven into each other’s lives
for a few hours, a momentary plot full of laughter,
tenderness, and a spontaneous, shimmering joy,
while all around us the world goes dark.
Posts Tagged ‘travel’
While Sitting in 7F
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged airplane, connection, joy, story, strangers, travel on June 13, 2026| 4 Comments »
No Detail Too Small
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged coffee, details, music, noticing, small things, travel on June 7, 2026| 10 Comments »
The weather changes the beans,
Svetlana tells me as we sit in her home.
I sip the coffee she’s made me,
a blend she and her partner created
from five different beans that they roast
themselves. She can taste in her cup
whether the growing season was rainy
or dry. Everything changes everything.
No detail too small to link us to the world
of the real, to help us remember who we are.
I am thinking of the piano player
today in Santa Fe. As her hands
flew across the keys, passionate
and precise, it was the way she moved
her eyebrows that stirred me,
her utter commitment and wonder
expressed in a single arch or furrow,
lift or frown. I am thinking of how
my friends Don and Mindy have written
the word wisdum on the wall in their home,
and how all day I have giggled about it.
They can seem so trifling, the details
that capture us, claim us, rearrange us.
I once thought redemption was something grand.
Something costly. Unlikely. Now I believe
the lost pieces of ourselves can, in part, be
recovered through noticing the smallest of things—
the raising of a brow, a handwritten word,
the treble notes in a roasted coffee bean.
The Arrival
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hospitality, kindness, language, travel on June 5, 2026| 2 Comments »
After I drove six hours
she welcomed me at the door
of her home
with a pair of slippers
and a glass of water—
there are many languages
I want to learn to speak fluently.
Kindness, most of all.
Maximum Strength
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, duct tape, kindness, Moudi Sbeity, travel on April 26, 2026| 18 Comments »
for Moudi and Taylor
Starting the long drive home,
I do not turn on the radio
to hear news of the broken world.
My father taught me every broken thing,
from coolers to car doors to roofs,
could be fixed with silver duct tape,
at least for a while.
How big would the roll have to be,
America? On the seat beside me,
a green and white striped bag
is filled with hummus and cheesy crackers,
chocolates filled with coconut and pistachio,
oat protein bars, dried mango strips
plus a small baggie of pretzel twists,
a road-food care package my friends
prepared for me in the middle of the night
so it would be on the counter waiting for me
to find when I left their home at dawn.
Perhaps kindness is a kind of duct tape—
which is to say it doesn’t actually fix things,
but it does help us go on. What is broken
is still broken, but I can taste the adhesion
in the coffee they ground for me last night
so I could be awake for this morning’s drive—
hints of cinnamon, dark chocolate, toffee,
love. I feel how their kindness holds me together
this morning. How sticky it is, the message
they wrote for me in sand: you are loved.
The message will fade, but as the world
goes on breaking, I feel surrounded
by their kindness all the way home.
When René Makes Peruvian Noodles and Huancaína
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, peru, travel on December 16, 2025| 6 Comments »
I ladle on extra sauce.
Roasted peanuts. Onion. Mint?
Fruity heat of yellow pepper.
It’s creamy, spicy, decadent.
I think how far Renee has traveled.
A wide river hides in his smile.
A great cat prowls through his name.
There are mountains in his eyes.
When Renee makes Huancaína,
I taste somewhere I’ve never been.
A sacred valley with ancient paths.
Misty skies and terraced lands.
His gift to us: within moments of tasting,
we travel flavors centuries in the making.
Home Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, generosity, home, light, mom, travel on November 14, 2025| 4 Comments »
In a city where we meet,
mom arrives with thin
rye crackers, dill Havarti,
carrots, fresh raspberries,
a tea kettle, and packets
of peppermint tea—all
things she knows I love.
And sipping right now from
the slender, porcelain
pansy mug she wrapped in
clothes and brought in her suitcase,
I listen in the dark of the hotel
to the soft, even luff of her breath
as she sleeps, and inside it
I hear the light of her, the
generous light, the tender light,
a nectary of light, a clear channel
of light that teaches me something
of how to live in these long, cold
volumes of night.
Bouquet of 19 Haikulings from San Miguel de Allende, Denver and Tulum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haikuling, mexico, travel on April 20, 2025| 8 Comments »
Hi friends!
I’m back from vacation with my family–we spent time in San Miguel de Allende, Denver and Tulum–and as you’ll read, yes, I did break my fifth metatarsal in my foot. And I will be fine–the best case scenario for a broken bone in your foot. I am still planning to be in California next week to do performances and workshops–albeit on crutches, but with a smile on my face.
Also, so many fabulous things happened while I was gone–I will put some of them into a gathering of good news in another post, plus a link to my thoughtshop this week on our glorious imagination and poetry.
Below you’ll find poems from all the days I was gone–sometimes more than one a day–and with this, the daily poems will resume appearing here in a daily way!
Love,
Rosemerry
horizon line—
feeling my love
travel beyond it
*
church bells in the dark—
the sound of two forty-five a.m.
becomes lullaby
*
like a ripening guava
this small hard memory
now sweetens the whole room
*
napping in the sun
my limbs forget
what an hour is
*
it’s okay if you can only
conjugate in the present
says the scent of fresh tortillas
*
entering the ancient church
how many others whispered here
thy will be done
*
hand above the knob—
how many doors did I close
to open this one?
*
one misstep
and the thin bone breaks—
time to learn new ways to dance
*
rather out of tune
the mariachi band—
still my joy bright as their trumpets
*
like clouds with wings
this tree billowing
with white egrets
*
as if nature went wild
with a purple crayon—
city of jacaranda
*
foot broken
finally still enough
to hear the chickadee
*
like seaweed on the beach
these old stories of self—
each morning, time to rake again
*
listening to waves for days—
what part of me
is not ocean?
*
anger is potent fuel
but joy, joy burns
just as bright, more clean
*
I want to swallow
the whole universe with my heart
starting with this bitter bite
*
scent of mesquite fires
clings in my hair,
whispers, you belong
*
I cannot fix anything
but I can
hold you
*
the stranger in 15D and I
both sing along with pre-flight music—
shower the people you love with love
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
One Driving to the Airport at 4 a.m.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, driving, highway, music, travel on October 9, 2024| 2 Comments »
the empty highway
stretches through the dark—
a music staff with one long note
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