Tag Archives: wonder

Righteous riffs, The Girls

A Deliberate Consideration of the Larger Body of Evidence

Our printer’s been broken.

The past couple weeks I’ve been going to Office Max to print out the letters I send (I type ‘em, owing to how horrible my handwriting is).

Couple Sundays ago I didn’t make it before they closed. So the next morning I decided to email my daughter the letter I meant to send.

I had a hunch that her Monday might appreciate a flotation device.

Probably because I knew my Monday would appreciate a flotation device.

“I needed this today,” she wrote back later that night, acknowledging a few of the unexpected life and health plot twists that have been ganging up on her.

But then she wrote this …

“I’ve recently taken solace in the fact that this is a just a week in the season of college. Like all seasons, it is temporary. It is also a privilege. The rainfall of spring is yearned for in August and winter hungers for summer’s heat. There’s a lesson in that I think.

“So, it would seem, it is not All Bad.

“Barring tragedy, a month from now I will be leaving for Ireland, having survived the midterms and late-night rehearsals and daily small annoyances and whatever other pileups on I-76 happen between now and then.

“Our only job is to stay afloat in the interim, holding on to as many small, wonderful things as we can.”

Meet my new favorite writer.

She signed off with, “Loquaciously yours.”

“I needed this today,” I have found myself thinking pretty much every day since.

I keep coming back to the same nine words like a campfire.

“So, it would seem, it is not All Bad.”

Such tender stitching across those nine syllables.

I love the commas so much.

Technically speaking they’re not necessary.

But I also think that’s what makes them essential.

Humble stakes in unsettled ground … to mark a deliberate consideration of the larger body of evidence.

The commas give “So” the space it needs to fulfill its destiny as a stunt double for “Therefore.”

“So, it would seem, it is not All Bad.”

I think I love “it would seem” even more.

How it stops just short of certain, while daring the reader to draw a different conclusion.

And the capitalization of “All Bad”?

It’s so good.

Puts it on a pedestal so the reader appreciates it’s not worthy of so lofty a perch.

In no way does it dispute that ‘it’ is, in fact, bad.

That bad exists.

That there will always (always) be bad.

It just doesn’t allow bad to hog the middle seat arm rest.

For the past couple weeks, those nine words have been sharing morning coffee in my heart with Philippians 4:8, which a friend recently gifted to me, and which I recently scribbled in my horrible handwriting — in all of St. Paul’s Comma glory — on the inside cover of my journal.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable … if there is anything worthy of praise, think about such things.”

Under which I scribbled Em’s loquaciousness.

It’s my experience that the small things do indeed make for the best flotation devices.

Like typed letters meant for the mail but broken-printer emailed on a Monday morning.

Needing only nine syllables to stitch wisdom worthy of stone tablets.

Humble commas that aren’t necessary, but show up for the protest anyway.

Capitalizing things to put them in their place.

Saints who remind us of the job description.

And scribbled journals in our messy handwriting … to help us, in the interim, hold on to as many small, wonderful things as we can.

LY,

Pete and Emma

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Righteous riffs

The Greatest Tribute (Ode to Jim)

A letter arrived yesterday from my friend Jim.

My normal custom for an early-in-the-week Jim letter is to save it to open on Saturday morning.

To give myself something to look forward to.

And to make sure I have the space — temporal, physical, soulful — to savor the treasure inside.

My friend Jim’s a wonderful poet. His letters are always accompanied by a few of his recent poems.

He happens to be in his 90s now.

When I grow up, I hope to someday write as well as Jim does in his 90s.

At his age he senses the nearness of death. As a former pastor he also senses the nearness of being called Home.

Having lived so long, having lost his wife, Mary, to dementia a couple years ago … he keenly appreciates the preciousness of days and time.

And stares it all down with a poet’s heart.

Has made a practice of sifting the everyday for meaning and for magic.

And somehow makes it all rhyme … figuratively and literally.

“Poetry is persistently plaguing me at night, and when, half asleep, I kick off the covers, I force myself to get up, write down a phrase, or a line or two, so precious that I just can’t chance to let it wander away.”

For the record, I’m a little over half Jim’s age, and when I kick off the covers at night, it’s to get up to pee, not scribble down epiphanies.

Jim inspires me so much, in both the act and the substance of his letters and poems.

We’ve carried on a correspondence for a few years now.

I’ve noticed a common refrain in his letters. A lament.

He’s always longed for his poetry to be published … so it can be remembered.

In a post-Thanksgiving letter, he wrote, “Doggerel, following me like a lost puppy, and when on Google yesterday, I found a host of famous lines of Tennyson … I asked, ‘Will anyone remember even one of mine?’ as if I’ll care after my death.”

But only a line later … “Sunday morning sun brightens the tarnished attitude I bring to life on these usual dull winter days.”

I can attest that Jim’s poetry is beyond worthy.

When I wrote him back, I asked him if he would mind if I shared his poems with friends.

And for once, when his reply arrived in the mail, I didn’t wait until Saturday morning to open it.

Something about the urgent pause of a New Year’s Eve suggests a break with custom.

“YES, you may share whatever comes from me. That is the greatest tribute that I know of … of my attempts at poetry … to be liked enough to share.”

In thinking how I might best serve your precious attention in this moment … I can’t think of any better gift to share with you than Jim’s gifts shared with me. Of his noticing in a sparrow’s visit a kindred spirit. His allowing a newborn sun to surround in warmth all that’s old in him.

So in this space between the holidays, between our no longers and our not yets, may we greet whatever lies ahead as if it were a Sunday morning sun.

May we approach it with the wisdom, persistence and awe of a 90-year-old poet still sifting this broken world for its good light.

May we ever be so alive to what moves us that we have no choice but to kick off the covers and call it by name, so we can share our magic words with the world around us.

May we always (always) have something to look forward to.

If you are so moved, you have Jim’s permission to like, share and comment. I promise to reflect your good light back to him.

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