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 came into this world 

A few days ago, I find a decades-old poem, typed in a visual design on my Canon typewriter on December 21 in 1989. It is about birth. Thirty-four years later on December 14, I turn seventy. Unimaginable, back then. I remember the 36-year-old woman in the freezing attic, rented from a friend, on a bitter cold night, ready to uproot her life and embark on a new journey. After six months, I am involuntarily catapulted back to my life in theater and teaching. But that winter – solitude my companion – the first spirit movement of a new chapter, the beginning of a slowly unfurling deep transformation, lasting the next four years. Taking me to places of death, endings, new beginnings, re-birth. Not the first major dramatic turning point, and not the last. 

 

            When the very first step 

                                                      is not 

                                                               a step 

            I remember: never-existing childhood jumps 

                                                                                        leaps 

                                                                                                 into the blueness of 

            virgin days 

                               tasting the ground 

                                                               my burnt soles 

                                                                                        black 

            the very first step 

                                          was never 

                                                            a step 

            was like bursting glass 

            was like shooting stars 

                      what it was 

                  before 

                                                     the ground pulled 

                                                                                    away from underneath 

            me underneath me 

            i will never know 

            what it  

                         was the very first step 

                                                              never a step 

 

            feet embrace earth                                        trees had lost their leaves 

            pink flesh mother was                                   icy wind between my teeth 

            robbed of the sun                                          in my neck 

            mother’s heart of glass                                  the heartbeat of mother 

            burst into pieces                                            chasing me into this world 

            the sheet the room                                         falling tearless 

            were covered splattered                                blown dry and empty 

            with glass with blood                                      dry and empty freeze-dried

 

                                                when i                         i came 

                                                when i                         into this world 

                                                            came into this 

                                                                    world 

 

Azalea bush flowering in December 

  

Winter is a time of vulnerability. At the point of greatest Darkness, Light starts to return again. Yin gives way to Yang, both energies engaging in the dance of balancing and change. Nine days ago, on a very clear new moon night, the densely woven mystical carpet of stars arching far above, celestial bodies bejeweling the deep dark winter sky – enchanting me. Before entering my bedroom cottage, I linger outside in stillness, head hanging back, faced raised, I revel while being showered with starlight. The big oaks shelter me from the glare of city lights. In those minutes, a softening and expansion takes place. I feel the gift – Mama Oak and her protective far-reaching arms are gone, now the night sky above is opening up, reaching for me. The Belt of Orion lingers low near the Cork Oak, since childhood my most beloved constellation. Comforting solitude. 


Solstice: last Asian pear left on bare tree



what comes into the world for you on this solstice night?



Comments

aysha said…
Solstice night, my parents talk about going separate ways, journeying on from each other and leaving this house where I grew up. I sit down on the cold stone steps outside the house, underneath the Japanese maple that was always so vibrant in the summer and fall. Now it is bare, but strung with lights. I just want a few conscious moments with this place, site of so much of my life, so much struggle, so much taken for granted. Despite whatever tumult I experienced, it was a stable childhood. There was no war at our doorstep. The wars were elsewhere, in Punjab, in Kashmir, in Germany, in Palestine. Whatever slow violence took place here, it was relative stability. I learned the ins and outs of wealth, of ice dams, of skating on thin ice, of snapping turtles, of water stains, of nowhere to go, of hiding cigarettes, of crying silently, of my mother’s loneliness, of my father’s absence, of well-varnished floors, of a smooth banister, of sediment-filled water, of long showers, of books and books, of tile on my feet, of my father’s laughter, of my mother’s cackle, of my sister’s gossip, of our secret handshake, of forts built out of mats and couch pillows, of the stars at night, of the quiet, good and bad.

My first step was not a step either. I stood up and ran across the living room and crashed into the chimney, amazed. This is the story that I hear: I am running, agile, ready for whatever comes next.
December 22, 2023 at 7:54 AM
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