Off-Leash Writing

On the Occasion Of My Fifty-Seventh Birthday

 
 

After Annelyse Gelman, “How to Pray”

It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us – else what use is love at all?

-       Oscar Wilde, “An Ideal Husband”

Bless the missteps, the stumbles, the chances lost

Bless the heaviness

The memory of those things brings

Bless friendship abandoned

Love unrequited or forsaken

Opportunity squandered

 

Bless the gentle Spaniard

With eyes of softest brown

Whose lips you kissed

and hand you held

On a Peace March

In Nicaragua, 1990

Then lost at a rally

And never found again

 

Bless the dear Dutch friend you made in Ghana

So funny, so quirky, so kind,

Who said if you don’t write back this time

She wouldn’t write to you again

And why, oh why, did you not?

 

Bless the friend who,

In your solo performance days,

Gave you the phone number

Of a major producer

He was sure would like your work,

And bless that younger you,

Pre-caller ID you,

Who sat with that number

Hot in her hand

Dialing and hanging up

And dialing

And hanging up again

 

Bless regret

Oh bless regret

Bless envy too

Bless the moments your heart feels wrung out

Bless every smooth road you bypassed

 

And every bumpy one you chose to walk

Or skip

Or dance down

Bless each land where you roamed

Each stage where you performed

Each word you wrote

Person loved

Baby birthed

 

Bless friends gathered around your table

And those whose circles you join

 

Bless the moment when your heart

Aches with the fullness of a bright autumn day

The painful love

For the children growing

Family and friends

coming and going

Leaves changing color

Dogs licking and wagging

The very air

Now cool, now warm

 

Bless the wide purple splotch

You put in your hair

the day before your birthday

 

You meant it to be a semi-subtle streak

Subtle, it is not

 

Bless the Miley Cyrus song Flowers,

That filled you with joy

When it entered your mind

at the Farmers’ Market

on your birthday.

You’d just texted D, your wasband,

Asking him to get you flowers (knowing

As you do, that if you ask

For what you want

With great precision,

You won’t be disappointed)

 

But then the song came to you—

…I can buy myself flowers…

—And you saw the dahlias,

Fresh, ebullient, variegated,

And texted back, never mind,

And bought yourself

Two bouquets

One for the kitchen

One for the sunroom

 

(Bless how happy those flowers made you, and how that joy was undercut when you showed D the video and he walked away halfway through because he didn’t like watching Miley “humping” herself, and how the joy came back full force when GV played the song for you on the phone later while you were out walking the dogs, and GV danced to it at her house, and you sang and danced down the sidewalk, leashes in hand, never mind the looks from the passing cars, just as you’ve done since you were a child, and as you will continue to do into old age and beyond, if there is a beyond, because if there is a beyond, you sure hope you can sing and dance there, because if you couldn’t, what would be the point?)

 

Bless the photos

Of the lopsided purple splotch

You posted to social media

Referencing the children’s book
“The Beautiful Oops,”

Using it as metaphor

For the way life

Doesn’t always go as planned

 

And bless you deleting the post

Five minutes later

Having decided you hated the photos

But somehow people kept liking

And commenting on it

For another two hours

 

Until you finally decided the universe

Must be sending you a message about acceptance

And maybe the photos were okay after all

And then

all at once

The post disappeared

And you couldn’t find it anywhere

Not even in the trash

 

Bless the dinner at Aventura

with the beloved wasband

And the beleaguered waiter

Who messed up the order

And kept apologizing

over and over

Throughout the night

 

Bless the churros

With hot caramel and chocolate sauce

Which D called an elevated version of churro

The perfection of the form

So you brought some home

For fifteen-year-old E

Bless the look on E’s face

As he savored each bite,

Saying mmmmm and where did you get these?

Bless his sweet enjoyment

Bless that he got just how amazing

Those churros truly were

 

Oh bless it all,

The sweet and the bitter of it

The clumsy and graceful

The foolish and the wise

Bless it

Today and always

 

Oh

Poetry, Memoir/Personal EssayTanya Shafferaging, personal growth, personal essay, poems, poetry, prose poetry, women aging, feminism14 Comments