Blank Verse

Nine years ago I visited a rest home for patients living with Alzheimer's Disease in Stages III and IV. There are very few care facilities available to this population in the Phoenix area. I approached the activities director, and asked if I could come in once a week and lead them in creative writing. Lorraine sat down. I wanted to gather several members together in one of the cottage living rooms for a group writing session. Lorraine was surprised that I just showed up out of the blue. I had my reasons.

We talked about creative writing and how that might come together in an environment where inhibitions are low and free association and lyrical speech are readily accessible to them. She agreed and I came back the next week with pictures and prompts and an easel. Over the next several months, I asked questions and wrote down their reflections. We had a wonderful time.

Every now and again, I’m going to put up one of their poems for you all to enjoy. These writings were not compiled within the framework of any kind of poetic structure. I called them poetry because when I read the first one back to them, Nancy shouted, “A poem!” A poem indeed.

This is one of the earlier pieces. The line breaks are where thoughts ended or another individual started to speak. Fifteen residents participated in this session.

Others More Recent

Redwoods in Northern California the size of a dinning room

Reflections

Creations of God

Snow on mountain tops

Hiking for flowers during spring

It’s really good – that part of it

You can just look at it—

And that makes it almost…

Nebraska—Lincoln—the capitol where my father was born.

Eight of us picking pears along the Northern Coast

Old cactus country—Douglas, Arizona

Climbing trees all the time - when I wasn’t falling down that is (sly smile)

Swinging on ropes ascending too high, more than mama wanted.

I looked all around that place—

My most favorite thing was climbing those mountains.

Off to the woods…where we got into a lot of trouble was what we got (laugh)

My cousins and our gang, my brother and sister, and me—oh boy!

Then there was the time my father took me to see Harry Truman give a speech…now that was somethin’…

Places I’ve gone and mountains I’ve climbed, some long ago, others more recent.

What's so damn funny about that?

I suddenly realized last week that the first decade of the 21^st century is coming to an end. Since then, I’ve been thinking about what the last ten years have looked like for my family and me. I wanted to wax poetic here, but that is best left to the poets in my life. So, to sum up, we have experienced love and loss, victory and defeat, renewed hope and bitter despair. Not much different from your lives, I’m sure.

What made these years, and every year, bearable and illuminated, has been our ridiculous and fairly inappropriate collective sense of humor. Our familial meta-humor if you will. We make each other laugh to the point of gasping for air, pulling stomach muscles and shedding tears.

Even when my brother and I are at total odds with each other – barely able to be in the same room together – he can pull just the right movie quote out of thin air and make me pee in my pants (which is not that hard since I’ve given birth to two children). Or how about the days when my daughter would rather drill under her finger nails than hear my voice one more time, she will sing out “I LOVE YOU, MOM!” which is meant to sound like the F-bomb curse. I always laugh and then she laughs.

But sometimes the feelings are just too big for humor right in the moment, and so we make a gesture in unsure and awkward ways to give each other space for a little while. And sometimes, maybe especially in those times, we need permission to laugh again.

My mother died in 2007. That first week, I cried, but mostly I withheld so many tears that I could barely swallow. A whole gaggle of family arrived at Sky Harbor International Airport that week in August. Twenty minutes later they crossed the threshold of our back door. My aunt Betsy marched into the house demanding, “Where is she? Where’s Mare?” She found me leaning against the kitchen counter. Betsy pulled me close and whispered the most inappropriate and off-color statement in my ear. I erupted in surprised hysterics. For the first time since my mom passed, I let go of a belly laugh, and I let go of clenched sobs on Betsy’s shoulder.

Ask any kid and they’ll tell you that inappropriate laughter is the best. Getting the giggles when you’re supposed to be quiet, or good, or polite is more contagious than a summer cold. Or how about when someone says the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time, and another someone starts snorting? Those are the moments that will unite any group of strangers.

Laughter is the call for emotional presence – for filling up with feelings of euphoria and of overwhelming fear. Laughing when I’m angry (because I’m really feeling sad) helps me come up for air, and eventually moves me into the solution. I said eventually. J Laughter is validation of my victory and my injury; permission to celebrate and to bleed; and the next step toward a dream and a revelation.

Sure it’s all hard and some days are just so unbelievably sucky that I'm just sure the suck can’t get any worse – like when my mom died. Even then, I craved the bridge between the suck and the hope. I needed that orchestra of laughter that I share with my family and friends: deafening howls, snorts, giggles, guffaws, hiccups, and honks. That is where I want to live. Where I want to rest my head. Where I want to feel it all.

the road to god knows...

Generally speaking I don’t follow the graphic novel genre. Three months ago I couldn’t name one author – okay well, I could name one, but I definitely couldn’t name two. Von Allan changed that for me.

Von Allan lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I met Von on Twitter (@VonAllan). We immediately talked “story” and found we had a great deal in common. When I saw the mock up of “the road to god knows…” I was easily taken with Von’s artwork and his beautiful ability to illustrate “silence” on the page. The cover art is actually my favorite frame in the book. The detail of the "Lost Cat" sign on the light post sets a perfect tone. The more intriguing part of this book, and what made me Von’s fan, is the story.

Marie is 13 years old and lives a very difficult life – one that must be told fearlessly and honestly in order to resonate with an audience. The first part of her story is that of an 8^th grade girl navigating the landscape of teachers and peers. It’s pretty daunting for our girl.

The second layer of complexity is Marie’s mother, Betty, who is just home from a stay in the hospital. Betty suffers from schizophrenia – an illness that not only comes with a clinical diagnosis but also a societal moral judgment. Marie struggles to make sense of her teenage world while trying to protect her mother from others and herself.

I know something about chronic illness. My mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when I was eight years old. The medical community didn’t know much about MS in the 1970’s. My mother’s neurologist said there was a 90% chance she would be dead within 10 years. By the time I was 13 I was so resentful that I was almost absent from my mother’s life. After I started driving, I rarely saw my family.

MS doesn’t carry a stigma the way most mental illnesses unfortunately do. One symptomatic crossover is the lack of appearing sick – at least in the beginning. I had to field a lot of questions and deal with a lot of awkward silence.

When I read this book the first time, I immediately wondered how I would’ve felt about it when I was 13. Would I have pushed it away? Would I have exhaled warm air from my lungs in the kind of way that can change a teenager’s trajectory? Marie’s future is uncertain. Her giggles are stolen between day-to-night worries. Von leaves Marie’s story open so the reader can walk with her on – the road to god knows…