Heidi Beth

From the age of seven to just before my 21st birthday I was under the impression that every time I sat down with pen and paper or word processor, I should be trying to write something good, deep, moving, complete. Fortunately, I was young and less critical. While I didn’t think everything I wrote was great, I was content with the results enough to keep on. Unfortunately, I could tell my writing needed “something,” but wasn’t sure how to obtain the elusive creative “whatever it was.”
Then in college I found and devoured “Writing Down the Bones,” Natalie Goldberg. Finally, I was freed to just write. From then on until my first son started crawling (about 6 years later), if I wasn’t working, I was usually filling a notebook, listening to my “voice,” inspecting the corners of my mind, learning to open channels beyond myself and translate what I found into visible words.
I took to heart two of Natalie’s rules of writing practice. First, don’t stop your pen to edit or think. I often wrote, “I don’t know what words to write next so blah diddy blah, how long until I get an idea that goes somewhere, blah, blah, blah, argh!!! I wonder what my mom meant when she said….” and I’d be off and running again. Second, when you come to “heat,” – which I took to mean an intensity you almost want to run from – don’t try to stay with the direction of what you were hoping to write, rather follow the heat as far as you can. In the same spirit, if you’re in a ten minute timed exercise, don’t stop at ten minutes if you’re still swimming in a great intensity.
When my son started to crawl – and by that I mean he sped around on his hands and knees faster than his older cousin ran – I let go of physical writing temporarily. Being familiar with the idea of mental composting and the benefits (for a writer’s writing) of being in the moment, I often reminded myself that while my kids were small, I was gathering life I would later introduce to paper or as it turned out, a lighted screen.
At the end of 20o9, writing asked for space again. Little by little, mostly on my first blog, I shared insights, ideas, memories, whatever my heart offered in the moment. In January 2010, inspired by a friend who is an amazing water color artist, I accepted the challenge to write 30 “finished” pieces of writing in 30 days. I made my intention public on facebook then got to work. This was different than letting words fly everywhere unconcerned with result. I was entering a new level of creativity.
Every day I wrote. Everyday I shared a link on facebook. The feedback was encouraging. When 30 days were spent, I felt like flying, much like a gymnast who learns a new skill on the uneven bars or an ice skater who finally rotates once around in the air between take off and landing.
Over the winter, spring and summer I was unexpectedly occupied with other things that, while exciting and interesting, didn’t allow for much time to write. Then came free time, the approach of autumn and a desire to write… a lot! That’s when I remembered my friend Sharon, aka mimetalker, and her blog with a built in audience?? Could it be? Yes!
On September 2nd at 12:36am, I hit publish on Open Salon for the first time. Over the next few days, I had fun writing and especially reading work from some obviosly very intelligent, thoughtful people. The fun lasted less than two weeks before I was completely intimidated and experiencing writers block for the first time in my life. In the face of such extraordinary talent, knowing my words would be read and probably compared to such well crafted work, I almost quit.
Luckily, Alysa Salzberg had already made contact. Her encouragement, kind comments and friendship were critical. One afternoon, mired in funk and self pity, I went for a bike ride. I hoped, but did not really believe, I might find an answer or at least a way out of the trap I had placed myself in.
Wind on my face, leaves crackling beneath my tires, close up faces of school children in finger snapping clusters, freed me enough to hear a small voiceless suggestion. “Write another 30 in 30 and don’t worry about the results.” I made a personal commitment right then. Bingo! I can’t say the posts were amazing – most were lumpy and difficult to manage – but by October 13th, my hands and mind were free to work together once more.
So how do I cerebrate when the tank runs dry? Years ago, I watched smoke dance and mostly did whatever I wanted whenever I felt like, but since I kicked the nicotine habit over 13 years ago and am now blessed with beautiful children whose care and upbringing dictates most of my actions in a day, I try to enjoy my family, stay present, experience my neighborhood without a destination and write without intention. Then, when I do sit down with a specific idea, or to work on an existing project, my mind is happy to focus.

I rearranged furniture, making a new nest, one where my kids can easily curl up beside me, one away from the picture window and winter’s wisps. When I move the recliner to the east wall where our futon was, I sweep up months of hidden life. Lost lego pieces nestled in hairy dust bunnies, a Playmobil sword gouged in the crack where we haven’t yet installed edging for our new laminate and half of a red bead are placed back in proper bins in a room full of youthful disorder. The boys wisely keep distance. Devyn is on top of a four foot snow mound created by an efficient plow. Matthew is cross legged on his floor, engaged in a world of play foreign to me even when I was his age. I was often found with a pen in a sea of paper.
My boys can spend hours spinning an adventure with super heroes they’ve created. Magic boy plays a prominent role. He has no weakness. Matthew created him. Devyn, try as he might, cannot convince his normally pliable sibling that Magic boy needs a weakness. He sighs at the injustice of trying to battle Magic boy, but usually manages to play along.
When I call Devyn in, I put him to work, wet and dry swiffering. I’m lucky. He doesn’t balk but he has no interest in going over the floor twice. I know this because he asks with tilted head, “Why do I need a wet cloth out here?” I tell him he’ll know when the floors are done. Fifteen minutes later, he proudly shows me a damp gray sheet before adding it to the garbage.
I move our life around now similar to how I used to change my life when the lure of financial chaos still had me by the throat. Instead of looking for new living rooms, I make ours new.
For a couple days I have been followed by shadows of disbelief. I move and speak as if all is well, but my muscles tighten against thoughts of my own irrelevance, incompetence, uselessness. These are not dominating notions anymore. Rather, they are a film over my efforts, a sickening green slime of lies masquerading as reality. These days I can look at them the way one glances sideways at a man yelling nonsensical syllables in a corner of the subway station. But I hear and feel them as if they know me.
When I was first married, this shadow of gloom crept up on my back after every warm gathering we hosted, which was often as we both love spontaneous company and a home filled with laughter. It crept up after every experience that had once been merely a hope on my list of visions and dreams for my life. Though during these episodes of darkness I knew what was real and what was knee jerk defense from that part of me determined to keep a low profile lest others see the real me, I was no less desirous of escape from the discomfort, still very susceptible to weakening and a sense that I was a failure (evidence be damned!).
Over time, I’ve been granted weeks, even months at a time full of wonderful experiences followed by rational delight and reasonable feelings of serenity.
Then one day, with no logical trigger, I find myself dodging darts of futility, having inner conversations with an inconsiderate critic, measuring my breathing to relax out of a faceless mounting tension. In response, I pray longer, let a list of gratitudes scroll through my inner hearing, sing into sadness in hopes of shedding the kind of tears that wash away pain and I reach for order. Yesterday I took a damp cloth to the floorboards in the bathroom, moved up to the walls, and every other surface. Soon I was looking around at a brighter place to take care of business. I made an important decision in the process. If ever we build our own house, the bathroom will be large and round. The toilet, tub and sink will be in the center. This way, I don’t have to reach around a lovely porcelain chair to clean all sides and clearing corners of wet dust won’t require special tools.
I say no logical trigger, but there always is one, whether I recognize it or not. Last night, I finally got to arranging money for the week. When I checked on two of our accounts, I discovered the bank thought we had less money than I had recorded in our savings log. Maybe this wouldn’t send most other people into fits of panic and anxiety, cold sweats and near terror but I was a mess. The shadows I had been trying to manage materialized, gathered in too close. I knew I had to say something to David and I was sure he would be angry, sure he would tell me how stupid I am. No matter that the scenario I feared does not occur in our marriage, early conditioning presets were lit up, and I could not see today, only a lifetime ago existed.
Davidasked questions until he understood my concern. Then he looked at our recent bank statements. In a short time, we knew what happened. No big deal. During a particularly busy time, I had failed to record certain transactions anywhere besides our main checking account. Because we did find them recorded in at least one place, he wasn’t alarmed and I was able to clam down, look up and stop acting like Chicken Little.
Moving furniture this afternoon gave me closure to last night’s finale, provided a sense of freshness and possibility, a new view.
So now our home is cleaner, more logically arranged, we have clarity about our finances and I’m serene. Maybe I should have waited on sorting out money until after tackling the cabinet below the kitchen sink. Too late. I’m happy to sit here now, listen to folk music and weave words to tell a tale of life.

Between dawn and daylight I move through a river of sacred moments as thoughts I ache to keep move like beautiful, slow, vanishing butterflies.
That’s when I visit Sasha.
Barely after dark lifts, snowy sky a mist gray, I’m standing in Bernice’s living room, alone, listening to her heater, listening to silence. I’m waiting for Sasha. She’s outside, paws sinking into crunchy snow with each step. I watch her for a few seconds, then turn my back to an empty room. I have no face, no voice.
When I left home, my husband and boys were sound asleep.
My first words to Bernice spoken two years ago, “You bought my house!” were met with a smile and a “Well alright then!” I told her I’m her Helen’s daughter, that we changed our mind only a few hours before making an offer on the house she’s just moved in to. For months after we chose a smaller one story a couple miles south, my younger son would sigh, “I wanted the two story.” He listened a few seconds as Bernice and I moved through proper introductions, walked past us and right through her front door. I’m lucky. She smiled at his back, called out, “Go ahead, Joshua is inside.” Josh is her 11 year old son. Bernice is my mom’s neighbor and, after an introduction that we both recognized as meeting a sister, one of my closest friends.
Now I’m in her living room at first light on Christmas eve, sharing space with an ornately lit pine, a shadow in its holy glow.
Dawn is slow in winter. I’m standing nowhere, surprised when Sasha’s at the back door after having inspected most of the yard. She’s ready to eat breakfast, which takes less than thirty seconds, then she wants love. I’ve been informed I spoiled her over Thanksgiving when they went north. Now her small, shaggy face is turned up to mine, her body wagging. I sit on the floor in front of the couch, pat my legs. All the while I pet her she looks at me adoringly. I’ve never owned a dog but I understand now.
Soon she’s snuggled along my leg. I plan to get up soon, head back to my family, my bed, when I notice she’s shivering. Plans change. We sit together, me giving her scritches and pets. I wait until her body doesn’t shake, until she makes her own way back to the doggy bed.
Home again, I crawl back under our king size comforter, snuggle up to my husband and drift back to sleep, the full light of new day settling over an early magic… until the dawn of Christmas morning, when Sasha and I start the day together once more.

unwritten words visit
we sit for coffee
chocolate cake
we spin a slice
of mystery
a word or two
between
casual remarks
to children weaving
worlds nearby
a moment arrives
i recognize
its mesmerizing
gaze
lean in to hear
tuck my legs
beneath me
bow before a lighted altar
i breathe
into
each syllable
sweat
in silent exertion
minutes fly
hours
alone again
i stretch up
pull my arms
together
breathe out
a heavy sigh
gaze past winter
outside my window
listen for a telling
time here spent
i
climb
through
a
small
opening
back
into
my
life

Devyn is 2. We’ve only just moved into our RV. He and I are alone after dark for the first time. Nothing is the same. We’re not in a neighborhood with head lights dragging shadows along our walls, but in a campground 10 miles out of town. Our home is foreign. I’m the foreigner. Devyn is at home anywhere with anyone. He’s alone with mommy. We’ve eaten and there’s no plan but to wait for daddy. Outside, darkness. Inside, paneled walls, late 70’s orange and green furniture, ghosts of hope and visions of what may come, but at this moment, there is only us and time loses meaning, refuses to inch forward. Nothing else to clean, nothing else to read, nothing else to distract myself and I don’t even know that’s what I’ve been doing.
Devyn sees none of this. He sees me slowing down. He knows what he likes, what we always do when mom sits down. First he nurses, then we read. Only this time, grandma isn’t in the next recliner sipping hot tea and David isn’t telling jokes from the couch. There is only me and a magnificent spirit, a spirit in my care and I’m ready to break apart, ready to climb straight out of my skin. Instead I breathe into the moment. I have no choice. Devyn’s brought a book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes to my lap, a book we haven’t read before. Were sitting in a fake-velvet chair. My feet are up on a low round table covered with yellow shag carpet. To my left is a small square of safety glass and brown wall. Ahead I see a two inch painted, porcelain kitten with a ball of yarn stuck with Velcro atop the mini cabinet containing every key we may use and a few brittle packages of fuses.
I’m not struck by the immensity of our next adventure or how we’ll afford to take off before winter. I’m hovering on the brink of anxiety mixed with sadness and a warmth I’ve never felt. This small living space makes us two souls floating as if in a night dream. I’m the big one, the one who is supposed to love and keep safe the small, fragile one. I am the one who is supposed to help the other be kind, happy, well adjusted. Somewhere in a yet unseen cavern of my being I wonder how one so broken and awkward can ever succeed at being his mother.
Devyn is so tiny for his age, when he sits in my lap, even my 5’4, 125lb frame contains all but his legs that hang just barely over the chair. “Mommy, read,” he says, handing me his little book of pastel drawings.
As I sing each word, we rock in time.

I begin to wonder about writing every day, or rather posting. Then I tell myself to take a day off, do something else with my free time. But I don’t want to. Writing, hitting publish, reading other blogs, commenting, reading comments to my posts and sometimes commenting back, often adding a link to facebook and enjoying a conversation there… all these bits of communication nourish me.
Today I’ve baked a chocolate mint cake with chocolate mint icing, rotated laundry, walked four miles, made friends with an acquaintance, spent the afternoon at an indoor play area enjoying the smiles on my boys as they sprinted past, drove us home accompanied by a steady click of hailsnowsleet bouncing off our van roof and a third child. Lego, Playmobil, Pokemon cards and wiggly boys adorn my floor.
Last night I was feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. Writing and sharing helps this helpless feeling fade. On my way to sleep at nearly 6am, sad and determined, I mapped out the “next” day: wake in a few short hours, break routine, let a telephone ACA meeting and writing a poem to/about my inner child be my morning prayers, pray later while getting ready for the social part of the day, meet friends where our kids can run and we can walk.
That’s how things went except I baked a cake early and opted to write later, which is now, in the company of children wrapped in make-believe.
I’m writing to Wailin’ Jennys, repeating words frequently, my fingers moving slow, the sadness of healing settling in once more. I don’t mind the sadness. I like tears better than apathy, heaviness over nothing. None of them are continual, more like waves, carrying my heart on a journey I can’t experience through senses but through remembering a sense of what I almost knew before I grew up.
As an adult I know facts, I know reason, hold too fast to logic. As a child I knew what I knew fiercely, felt like a freight train barreling through life, but had no inner permission to hang onto sadness, even when all around me crumbled.
So now? Now I’m a statue when a wave rises. Don’t want to whistle past. No rush. Now I wait, listen to her song. Knowing she can sing helps my heart.

I’m not familiar with Final Fantasy. I just love this song. The images are beautiful too.

A few months after Kori moved more than a thousand miles southwest, I learned algebra with my sixteen year old traveling babysitter (brother of a fellow skater), all the way to her new house, above clickety-clack, clickety-clack, one whole night and day.
One night, after dinner, we drove past luminarias, one after another for miles, resting on red stucco. We sang Away in a Manger, words never heard before. Sweetness gave me tears. We sang when I asked, please, I need to hear our voices rise again.
A tree I expected, gifts too, piled beneath. Each day before Christmas morning we wandered store aisles, seeking perfect generosity. I could not have known there would be so many on the awaited morning, or how they would appear to be bathed in magic.
Each night, a new adventure. Taco eating contest, singing along magic lights, skating on Los Alamos. I didn’t see the moon that trip, tall as a ten story, sitting at the end of their block, but now I know, if I had looked at just the right moment, I would see an enormous ball of light, one I might have walked to.
Children play wild. Most memories fade, grow hazy on the edges, file themselves deep in time gone. I slept in my friend’s room, ate with her family, won the taco eating contest, raced Kori in our scuffed white skates, jumping and spinning with floppy arms. Only a picture of luminarias, Jesus without a bed, my sadness for Him, my adoration of our mingled voices telling so two thousand years later, and waking to presents washed in a ray of dawn, many more than I remembered from the night before, my name written over and over beneath those pine needles, remain outlined in their reality.
Going home two weeks later, clickety-clack, with my first companions eighteen year old sister. Up all night in the dining car with a table full of barely adults. Intellectual debate for the first time, like only can happen with those on the brink, ready to tip out of childhood. I kept up, drinking in easy laughter as it gave way again and again to weighty matters, but always back to joy. We returned to our seat long after dawn.

Last night as I meditated on J D Smith’s courage witnessed poetry challenge, I thought of my parents journey that started when I was 15. I was too tired to start writing then, but words, images and something similar to music regarding their courage lulled me to sleep. When I sat down to write today, two poems began to form. I can’t seem to merge or separate them completely. The first is general, a flash look at what I’ve witnessed over the years in the lives of so many. The second is specific to my family.
Part 1
we want a glorious recovery from addiction
one everyone will applaud
recognize for what it is
a Herculean effort to be normal
functional
not destroy our life one day at a time
watching it wither and fade
yellow roses from a funeral
grow moldy at the stem in dirty water
remember a life that could have been something great
not gone down the drain
yet those near us have often stopped watching
our decline
we don’t want to be one of those stories on the nightly news
that man who went crazy
woman who ran into a child and father
on her way home
from the bar
we don’t want to be the family that implodes
doesn’t make the nightly news
homeless people only hit the press in batches
over Holidays when sympathy brings advertisers
addiction day by day
a decline into hell
a soft bed of excuses
easy
comfortable
oversights
indulgences
avoiding responsibility
no one incident seeming foul enough to drown the ship
until one nearly does
the whole family dangles over a cliff
attached to the abuser
waiting to see
if daddy will survive this time
if mom paid the mortgage
light bill
will all the food in the fridge go bad
again
this time
no one is around to help
they’ve been around
in the past
waiting as friends and loved ones will
ready to lend a hand
offer support
an ear
a dollar
but that time has spent itself
wasted on emergencies created by
addiction
to alcohol
narcotics
sex
food
debt
poverty
or nothingness
an addiction to failure
not trying
when trying would nearly ensure success
success would be so foreign as to feel criminal
the children
life as usual
not what they want
all they know
easily carried for generations
blind and broken
until one person wakes up
lets up
gives up the mirage
instant comfort given
another bottle
deal
line
chance
injection
eating binge
one night stand
until one person lets go
a ghost of control
dares to look
face to face at their deadly chaos
into the faces of their children
husband
wife
sister
brother
mother
father
finally falls on their knees before… before… at least a bone deep knowing their way will only destroy and just maybe
before God
and begins to
climb
When I was 15, my parents embarked on a path of recovery that started by lifting the veil on generational insanity (through various programs) which later led to recovery from addiction to compulsive debting, fear, co-dependence and dry alcoholism (manifesting as a string of lost jobs and destructive rages).
Part 2
I wish I could say recovery was beautiful
a cinema climax
ultimate victory
following
scenes through time made
joyful
by musical accompaniment
I cannot
my parents faced their
demons of destruction
one day at a time
though the damage was done
our lives continued to outwardly crumble
the next four years
they would lose
their house
car
marriage
eventually
their lives made sense
were made whole
a beacon of light to countless others
but only after
years
painful lessons
laced with victories
few could see
years would pass before I understood
As my parents dug out
from the rubble
addiction left behind
day by day
year by year
I watched
12 years later
after finally landing
on my own
adult knees
face covered in shame
I would begin
struggle through
the same work
different details
only then would I know
because of them
I witness courage
every time
another human being
begins
to
recover

If I were to write today
I would say
outside our front door
cold winds blow
below zero
inside our house
dusty towels snuggle against our front and back doors
keeping out brother winds skinny fingers
I would share a long
incomplete
grateful for sentence
hot decaf with eggnog, children playing legos, three people in pajamas, one mom under a blanket, Kodo blessing us from a desk top computer, hazelnut chocolate, potato chips, homemade dip, facebook
Open Salon
and how
Monday can
look
just this way for us
I would want to write a poem with no form
then I’d get back to working on a short story that’s been keeping me company night and day, whether I’m sitting with it’s physical being or not

As another departs
when I must say goodbye
until my cage opens
someday
I pray
Aunt Alma, will you hold her hand
show him around
love her like a mother
tell them stories
of how you made your way
Denise, your smile a radiant glow
I dreamed rainbow robes
flowed beneath your outstretched arms
inviting us to celebrate
your homecoming
when morning looks in
my cross legged form
head bent remembering
through an inner vision
dance all of you
grandmas, grandpas, friends
mentors I never met in flesh
always more tears for guides
who held my brokenness
never wavered
Each one glides into forever
inside my soul earth splits open
atoms shift
make room for all you can do now
beyond imaginings I entertain
In faint whisperings
I hear you
feel you
a tickling breeze
on my face
I see you
when butterflies land
on my shoulder
after I’ve ached
for one more minute with you
When no flowers are near
yet a scent of roses
comes and comes
across a gray city scape
I know you are giving again
Years from now
when everyone I know gathers
beyond the veil
when I dance one among
I pray we will only know each of us be
Family