I sent my son a picture of the light streaming through the windows yesterday afternoon. We’ve had a cold snap and the time change and cold crisp air made the moment pristine. I had harvested the daffodils because of sub 20 temps the night before. They were placed next to my reading chair. He and I share a love of reading and the photo begged to be sent. I wrote a few lines to him explaining the capture. I penned them quickly in my usual cryptic style. The text and image did not send. It was hours before I could get them to go (the signal in the mountains, especially on a windy night, is finicky). Living on two different coasts meant a 3-hour time difference and I was asleep long before he finally saw the message.
This home
An hour ago
So lovely
Chimes ringing
I cut the daffodils from a field before a hard frost.
They are like pure kindness.
This morning I woke to the sweetest note.
“That picture and poetry is so cool! Looks so peaceful. Wish I was sitting there.”
Poetry? I didn’t send a poem. I reread the note and realized it was my method of communication to loved ones and friends. People who know me get sound bites. Once I called it stream of consciousness. Now I think of it as my decades, intuitions and ponderings. But poem? That would have taken much more deliberation. More precision. Exactness. Thought.
This creates a dialogue in me. I love to understand others not only by the words they say, but also by those that they do not say. Nuanced emotion and pauses giving hints equal to the spoken words. My intuition for meaning demonstrates that I am deeply listening to another person’s story and manner. I treasure the fact that those in my life understand the same in me. That I don’t have to always use complete sentences or spell out every connection to the chain of ideas spilling forth for my friends and family to comprehend. You can ask a question if you don’t understand, right?
Stay with me here. Now I come to the fact that there is always a lot going on in my head. This is true of most of us when we are not meditating. Stories of my day, emotions, nature, images that strike me, connections to other situations, extensions to new learning, memories. Calm and sunlight. Depending on the day and situation there can be multiple narratives weaving their way to my awareness. I carry a notebook to fill up with ideas. To keep track of to do’s. To remember whom I have helped and what I have done. But, am I careful enough with my own speech patterns to be sure that I am explaining, clearly, to those who do not know my path and my personality? Do I make an unfair assumption that others love the excavation of the knowing as much as I do? That they will ask clarifying questions when necessary. That they will listen to all that I say with my eyes, hands, mouth, and stance? If my desire is to be clear and understood then perhaps the answer is not yes.
Poetry.
It is like birdsong, and the music of wind chimes. It sustains and connects us to beauty. Love. Life. Can it lend wisdom to communication? Or, does it hinder understanding for those who do not recognize the cadence?
My mom had a paramour decades ago whose name was Cosmo. She told me the story in my teens. They dated. He wanted to marry her. She stayed aloof explaining to me years later that they were from two different worlds. Cosmo was a trendy dresser, and a real gentleman. He was not my father. Mom and I are both gardeners. We tend the soil like we do discarded items, stray animals, lonesome strangers. Her love for cosmos has embedded in me a deep reverence for the lacy flower. Romantically listing on a mountainside or meadow. I plant them every year, harvest them when I am lucky, and think of mom and her admirer from the forties. My home was gifted with a vase of late season cosmos. Our guest bought them from the local flour/vegetable stand which exists on the honor system. You put your money in the wooden box and you take what pleases you. This guest in giving me a gift spoke joyfully of the sweetness of an honor system in the country. Only in North Carolina, she said. Let’s travel full circle. I am transfixed by these flowers – I can see them in my minds’ eye. But, I am not an artist. Or am I?
