Tag: friends

Ain’t It Good to Know…

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Because I know tomorrow
his faithful gelding heart will be broken
when the spotted mare is trailered and driven away,
I come today to take him for a gallop on Diaz Ridge.

Returning, he will whinny for his love.
Ancient, spavined,
her white parts red with hill-dust,
her red parts whitened with the same, she never answers.

But today, when I turn him loose at the hill-gate
with the taste of chewed oat on his tongue
and the saddle-sweat rinsed off with water,
I know he will canter, however tired,
whinnying wildly up the ridge’s near side,
and I know he will find her.

He will be filled with the sureness of horses
whose bellies are grain-filled,
whose long-ribbed loneliness
can be scratched into no-longer-lonely.

His long teeth on her withers,
her rough-coated spots will grow damp and wild.
Her long teeth on his withers,
his oiled-teakwood smoothness will grow damp and wild.
Their shadows’ chiasmus will fleck and fill with flies,
the eight marks of their fortune stamp and then cancel the earth.
From ear-flick to tail-switch, they stand in one body.
No luck is as boundless as theirs.
~Jane Hirshfield “The Love of Aged Horses”

We all know that something is eternal. 
And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, 
and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars 
. . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, 
and that something has to do with human beings. 
All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that 
for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised 
how people are always losing hold of it. 
There’s something way down deep that’s eternal ….
~Thornton Wilder, from “Our Town”

Is there anything as wonderful as a good friend when times get tough?

Someone who doesn’t mind if you are getting long in the tooth and fluffy around the waist and getting white around the whiskers?

Someone who will listen to your most trivial troubles and nod and understand even if they really don’t?

Someone who will fix you up when you are hurt and celebrate when you are happy?

Someone who knows exactly where your itches are that need scratching, even if it means a mouthful of hair?

We all need at least one. We all need to be one for at least one other.

Ain’t it good to know?
You’ve got a friend in me…

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Sweet Pea Run Wild

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Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle,
cracked ice crunching in pails,
the night that numbs the leaf,
the duel of two nightingales,
the sweet pea that has run wild,
Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.
~Boris Pasternak

Here are sweet-peas, on tip-toe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.
~John Keats from “I stood tip-toe on a little hill”

What did thought do?
“Stuck a feather in the ground and thought
it would grow a hen”

Rod by rod we pegged the drill for sweetpea
with light brittle sticks,
twiggy and unlikely in fresh mould
and stalk by stalk we snipped
the coming blooms.

And when pain had haircracked her old vestal stare
I reached for straws and thought
seeing the sky through a mat of creepers,
like water in the webs of a green net,
opened a clearing where her heart sang
without caution or embarrassment, once or twice.
~Seamus Heaney “Sweet Pea” from Station Island

Sweet peas flowering next to orange pumpkins?

Usually separated by season,
one from late spring,
the other from mid-autumn,
they were never meant to meet.

Yet here are strange neighbors,
grown side by side in the same soil
through the same weeks,
their curling vines entwined.

Forgotten sweet pea seeds swelled and thrived,
dropped in the midst of summer weeds,
now rich pastel blooms gracing a harvest table
with spring-like perfume.

So I want to germinate where I happen to land,
even when ill-timed and out of place.
May I run wild while interwoven,
bound to those who look and act nothing like me.

Thus encouraged to climb high,
I blossom boldly
to help face down the fate
of a killing frost.

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When a Great Soul Dies

barnstormingblog8 Comments

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines, gnaws on kind words
unsaid, promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls, dependent upon their
nurture,now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
~Maya Angelou from “When Great Trees Fall”

Sara,
my dear friend of nearly forty years,

When I learned you died this morning, your body overwhelmed by a sudden illness no one anticipated – I sat in stillness, trying once again to remember your soft voice, as if you were still part of this world.

I knew you were gone.

It was God’s timing to collect you back and so you went. We all are poorer without you – you the richer as you settle into a body no longer a burden and a struggle.

As recently as last week, you wondered aloud if you had it in you, after decades of surviving chronic illness and two cancers, to keep going with all your physical challenges. God heard your prayer. Instead of feeling depleted and emptied of purpose, you are now restored. The love and energy you shared during your long life, through your doctoring and farming and mothering and grandmothering, is replenished in the presence of Jesus Christ.

You have left so much of yourself behind:
Your mentoring made me a better doctor.
Your example made me a better mother.
Your gentle compassion made me a better friend.
Your forgiving grace and quiet patience made me a better person.

I wasn’t yet ready to say goodbye to you:
I regret not saying everything I needed to say.
I regret not taking more walks with you.
I regret not letting you know how much you blessed me
and the world simply by existing.

Now there is no doubt you are blessing heaven.
And so we who love you – your husband, children, grandchildren,
your friends, colleagues, former patients –
gratefully share the rare gift of grace that is
Dr. Sara Cuene Watson.

All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers,
the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
Isaiah 40: 6-8

(Photos from Dordt University prairie)

A Blossom Blessing

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Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.   
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me   
And nuzzled my left hand.   
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
~James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems

for James Wright

There are more like us. All over the world
There are confused people, who can’t remember
The name of their dog when they wake up, and people
Who love God but can’t remember where

He was when they went to sleep. It’s
All right. The world cleanses itself this way.
A wrong number occurs to you in the middle
Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house. And the second-story man
Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,
And he’s lonely, and they talk, and the thief
Goes back to college. Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom,
And hear great poems lovingly spoken
By the wrong professor. And you find your soul,
And greatness has a defender, and even in death you’re safe.
~Robert Bly “People Like Us” from Stealing Sugar from the Castle

There are rare transcendent moments when I feel I could step outside my body, because something or someone moves me so profoundly, I no longer need to have my feet on the ground.

I’m thinking beyond myself. I’m thinking of another.

It is a sensation of floating while still connected; a circuit created as if electricity might flow, if only for an instant.

You too? Then think of me thinking of you. It brings us back again to the same music, the same poem, the same work of art, the same discovery that illuminates our souls.

Oh, think of me. And I of you.

And this is why we are safe in God’s hands, no matter what happens. We are meant to blossom together.

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Too Many Dwindled Dawns

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Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.
~Emily Dickinson in a letter to a friend April 1885

Over the years, the most common search term bringing new readers to my Barnstorming blog is “dwindled dawn.”

I have written about Emily Dickinson’s “dwindles” on a number of occasions before when I miss having a house full of our three children, now spread far with families of their own. Even so, I had not really been diagnosed with a serious case myself until the last two years of COVID-time.

I am clearly not the only one. “Dwindles” have spread across the globe during the COVID pandemic more quickly than the virus.

There really isn’t a pill or other therapy that works well for dwindling. One of the most effective treatments is breaking bread with friends and family all in the same room, at the same table, lingering over conversation or singing together in harmony, because there really is nothing more vital for us to do.

Just being together is the ultimate cure.

Maybe experiencing friend and family deficiency will help us understand how crucial we are to one another. Sadly, due to the pandemic, too many are now gone forever, lost to further gatherings together. It is high time to replenish the reservoir before we all dwindle away to nothing.

So if you are visiting these words for the first time because you too searched for “dwindled dawn” — welcome to Barnstorming. We can stave off the dwindles by joining together in our shared isolation.

Because mornings without you all diminishes me.
I just want you to know.

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You Never Know…

barnstormingblog16 Comments

Without realizing it, we fill
important places in each others’ lives.
It’s that way with the guy at the corner grocery,
the mechanic at the local garage,
the family doctor, teachers, neighbors, coworkers.

Good people who are always “there,”
who can be relied upon in small,
important ways. People who teach us,
bless us, encourage us, support us,
uplift us in the dailiness of life.

We never tell them.
I don’t know why, but we don’t.

And, of course, we fill that role ourselves.
There are those who depend on us, watch us,
learn from us, take from us. And we never know.

You may never have proof of your importance,
but you are more important than you think.
There are always those who couldn’t do without you.
The rub is that you don’t always know who.
~Robert Fulghum from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

If there is one thing the pandemic taught me, it’s noticing the people in my life who may have not been as obvious to me before. I hadn’t realized how many folks truly are front-line serving others. It is not only the health care workers, grocery store clerks and school teachers but suddenly the list of “essential workers” has grown large, including law enforcement, plumbers and electricians, child care workers, water, sanitation and sewer maintenance, postal clerks, technicians who fix our cars and appliances and the farmers who tend the crops and livestock we need to live.

I realized how oblivious I had been before not taking the time to acknowledge the daily services I receive from so many varied people. In fact, it became even more urgent for me to tell my family members and friends – some thousands of miles away from me – how much they mean to me.

I’ve tried to remedy this: I try to tell others as simply and clearly as I can, whenever possible, that I appreciate what they have done and what they continue to do under difficult circumstances, how important they are to me and others and make life better for us all. I also need to continue to nurture those relationships with family and friends crucial to my well-being. I need them all.

It is so important for them to know.

Well over a thousand of you receive these daily Barnstorming emails and posts yet I only hear from a few of you – I treasure those messages, thank you! Let me know if I can do better at reaching out to each of you in a meaningful way – either by commenting on posts or emailing me privately at emilypgibson@gmail.com – we all need encouragement that we can make a difference in others’ lives.

This new book from Barnstorming is available to order here:

Diagnosing a Case of the Dwindles

barnstormingblog4 Comments

Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.
~Emily Dickinson in a letter to a friend April 1885

For the past year, the most common search term bringing new readers to my Barnstorming blog is “dwindled dawn.” I have written about Emily Dickinson’s “dwindles” on occasions, but had not really been diagnosed with a serious case myself until recently.

I am not the only one. It has spread across the globe and I regularly recognize the symptomatology of the dwindles in my clinical work with patients.

There really isn’t a pill or other therapy that works well for this. One of the most effective treatments I might prescribe is breaking bread with friends and family all in the same room at the same table while the sun rises around us, lingering in conversation because there could not be anything more important for us to do.

Just being together would be the ultimate cure.

Maybe experiencing friend and family deficiency helps us understand how vital they are to our well-being. You don’t know what you have ’till they’re gone, sadly some now forever.

Point well-taken; it is high time to replenish the reservoir before dwindling away to nothing.

So if you are visiting these words for the first time because you too searched for “dwindled dawn,” welcome to Barnstorming. We can dwindle together in our shared isolation.

Because mornings without you all diminishes me.
I just wanted you to know.

Reading This For Life

barnstormingblog14 Comments

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
~William Stafford, “You Reading This, Be Ready” from Ask Me

Nearly ten years of daily writing here in this spot:

I have met many people who I will never meet face to face but who share with me
their love of the land,
their family,
their animals
and most of all —
our Lord.

What do I want to remember?

Mostly, I want to remember your light and love as it finds its way through the darkest and thorniest corners of my life:

a kind word, a silent tear, a crooked smile, a whispered prayer.

What do I want you to remember having visited here?

I want you to remember
there is warmth in these words
and colors in these photos
that don’t come close to what it is like for real.

Mostly, I want you to know that each morning,
I send out this love to hundreds I’ll never meet,
but who are nevertheless my Barnstorming brothers and sisters.

Carry me with you and pass the light forward.
You never know where it might end up.

Tempted to Run and Rush

barnstormingblog4 Comments

pinkdogwoodbudding

 

The duties and cares of the day crowd about us when we awake each day
– if they have not already dispelled our night’s rest.

How can everything be accommodated in one day?
When will I do this, when that?
How will it all be accomplished?

Thus agitated, we are tempted to run and rush.
And so we must take the reins in hand and remind ourselves,

“Let go of your plans. The first hour of your morning belongs to God.
Tackle the day’s work that he charges you with,
and he will give you the power to accomplish it.”
~Edith Stein from Essays on Woman

 

pearblossoms20184

 

pearblossoms20181

 

Rushing headlong pell-mell tumble-bumble into the day is a specialty of mine.  Once I step out the door there isn’t a single moment of quiet breathing space until I step back in the door 12 hours later.  I realize this is a daily choice I make to live this way: no one forces me to see just one more patient (or four) or complete each chart before I leave or make sure I have responded to a hundred messages.

I would not rest well until the work is finished.

Therefore my hour of quiet starts very early in the day, usually before the sun rises or the birds start to twitter, when there is no every-fifteen-minute appointment schedule and the phone remains silent.

However the rising morning does not belong to me: God knows what I’ll need to get through the day.  He reminds me to breathe deeply, find time to smell the tulips, and take a walk with a buddy,  always remembering I’m not alone.

 

 

josehomer

 

meetingofminds

 

tulipsam

 

outforawalk1

 

 

Walking Alongside

barnstormingblog7 Comments

josehomer

 

 

thebuds

 

None of us can “mend” another person’s life, no matter how much the other may need it, no matter how much we may want to do it.

Mending is inner work that everyone must do for him or herself. When we fail to embrace that truth the result is heartbreak for all concerned.

What we can do is walk alongside the people we care about, offering simple companionship and compassion. And if we want to do that, we must save the only life we can save, our own.
~Parker Palmer writing about Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey”

 

 

10269242_10152623768496119_6707296016771738529_o

 

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice – – –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations – – –
though their melancholy
was terrible. It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do – – – determined to save
the only life you could save.
~Mary Oliver “The Journey”

 

emmachan711173

 

outforawalk1

 

 

Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.
~Eugene O’Neill

 

 

mapleponygold

 

kittensjuly27172

 

We are born hollering and suddenly alone,
already aware of our emptiness
from the first breath,
each tiny air sac bursting
with the air of our fallen world~
air that is never enough.

The rest of our days are spent
filling up our empty spaces
whether alveoli
or stomach
or synapses starving for understanding,
still hollering in our loneliness
and heart
broken.

So we mend ourselves
through our walk with others
also broken,
we patch up our gaps
by knitting the scraggly fragments
of lives lived together.
We become the crucial glue
boiled from gifted Grace,
all our holes
somehow made holy.

 

 

brothers

 

 

eaglecouple2

 

 

3musketeers2

 

 

homerhooter

 

 

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