Day Seven Wild Musings with Renee Magnusson
Pay attention to “Can I say that?” My first “Can I say that?” moment came minutes after I read Renee’s prompt this morning. One of my writer friends had emailed her poems to be critiqued for our poetry group’s upcoming meeting and in it she mentioned her mother’s celebration of life coming up on Saturday. ‘Maybe some day I will share the poem I wrote for the event’ she wrote. My heart went out to her and I immediately wrote her back then I paused at the end of the email. I felt nothing but love for her. But do I sign ‘love’ or not? Ugh. This drives me nuts. I am a love and kisses kind of gal (I am more reserved with men and of course with business stuff). But I know I can come across as overbearingly gushy and mushy. Or I imagine I can. Perhaps inappropriately so. I don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. But it’s hard to rein that in for me. A triple Pisces, my emotions spill out all over the place. Reining in what’s natural and debating over it like this can take up so much energy! A ridiculous amount. I could have taken a bit of a cop out by inserting a heart emoji (always another dilemma for me!) but in the end, fired by Renee’s prompt, I wrote ‘Love, Sue’ at the end of the email. She didn’t write ‘love’ back but her return email brimmed over with appreciation for my concern and love. Writing love although not a usual way of us responding to each other felt right for me this morning and I felt glad that I'd written it. Today I was meeting an old friend for a take out lunch at a park. She is scheduled for a second biopsy on Thursday. As I was eating breakfast, I noticed the two beautiful miniature rose bushes that Rob had brought home the other day. The last few days I’ve been given the roses, house plants, outdoor violets and two pots of mums from various people. My friend would love the rose. But could I give her that, a gift meant for me, a re-gift in a way? Did it seem cheap? All ready to leave to pick up our lunch, I paused with my key in the lock. I hadn’t picked up the rose. I stood on my front step, remembering today’s prompt, thinking “Can I say that?” Words are not the only way to say things. I figured she would understand and I went back inside and brought the rose. Before she even knew what it was, I told her the whole story: Renee’s prompts, Rob’s gift meant for me, pausing at the door. She smiled and shook her head. I enjoyed teasing her with not knowing what it was but when I gave it to her, she had tears in her eyes. And later she sent me a photo of where she’d put it in her apartment. So pleased with it. Again, my emails to her ended with ‘Love, Sue’ and she didn’t end hers with love, but again I could feel her affection and love in every word she wrote and in the thoughtfulness of her photo. Sometimes I feel vulnerable writing ‘love’ especially if it doesn’t seem reciprocated. It feels minuscule to even write that. Boundaries of course. I do my best to observe the boundaries of others and to establish my own but my energy feels so much freer, less sticky and thwarted, if I succumb to the love or hearts or kisses if that is my first impulse. My son Dane and I are very affectionate this way; I love you is a constant end to a text, message or phone call. When we’re together, spontaneous hugs are the norm. Once when I was visiting him I explained how when I was growing up I don’t remember our family being very demonstrative. The first time I remember seeing my parents touch other than dancing was when I was easily 8 or 9 years old, maybe even older, and we were racing across a busy road and Dad grabbed my hand and Mam’s hand and we all ran across together. As soon as we reached the other side of the road, he dropped our hands. Yet, I had stumbled in on them being lovey-dovey towards each other one day. So it was there, just hidden. And ‘I love you’s were never heard although Mam and my Nanna who lived with us (Mam’s Mam) were warm and loving. On hearing all this Dane said, “Oh we weren’t like that at all.” “Exactly,” I replied. “I made sure we weren’t.” Today Dane is one of the most openly demonstrative, warm, loving people I know. It makes me proud that he can be like that, that he can ‘say’ all that so easily. The prompt today reminded me to do something I’d been meaning to do for a while. Rob has had these medical issues lately and whereas I tell everyone in case I/we need support (and because I’m needing support through it as it stands), Rob doesn’t believe in big fusses or worrying people unnecessarily and he hasn’t mentioned any of it to his family. A few days ago he told me that he’d gotten a message from one of his daughters, Nessa, saying that she was checking in on him because she’d had a weird dream that involved his health and getting lots of voice messages on the phone. Rob had reassured her that everything was all right but didn’t validate her intuition. To him that would have involved a more complex conversation and concern and fuss. But I told him that I felt compelled to tell Nessa that her intuition was bang on (I had awakened to a few phone messages last week after Rob had gone to emergency). He shrugged, not really understanding and I wrestled with my thoughts for days, not wanting to alarm Nessa, staying true to Rob’s wishes yet validating her intuition which I feel is incredibly important. Today I asked myself, “Can I say that?” Finally I did in a way that although puzzling to her in its vagueness wasn’t alarmist or betraying to Rob’s wishes. Intuition and finding connections like that are a big source of light in my days and I feel they can be in the lives of others too. So my love language is words. But Rob’s is acts. (I can’t remember the exact name of the categories) I remember expressing to him years and years ago how I didn’t feel his love. I hurt him. He looked shocked. “How can you say that? I do all these things for you…” And he reamed off a huge list of things and I found myself adding more. “But you don’t tell me much,” I lamented. “I show you,” he replied. And when I found that test that tells you your love language and we did it, sure enough mine was verbal/written expressions of love (and oh boy am I a sucker for them!) and his was demonstrating love by actions. It helps so much to realise that. My first husband won me over by leaving fat letters under the wipers of my VW Bug. Letters he wrote to me during his down time at work, poems he penned just for me. Despite friends (mutual friends even) warning me away from him, despite me knowing troubling stuff he’d done and said, his words won me over. In his very first letter he wrote one of the most touching and heartfelt poems I think I’ve ever read. He ended the poem saying not all the words in the poem were his (some were an echo of the song ‘Words’ by the Bee Gees) but he was sincere: words were all he had to give. Were they enough? What could I say? Apparently they were. At least for that time. A memory with no regret. And today, through love written and said and shown, I feel I’ve expressed what needed to be expressed without regret through my day. Perhaps I’m learning. Day 236 #365daysofsybwriting #365daysofhaiku I brought two muffins but leave with plants, books and food arms and heart filled full
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AuthorWelcome! I'm Sue Blott: a writer of all things, a poet at heart, mom, wife, daughter, step-mom, grandma, tea drinker, tai chi-er, mystic, artist, dreamer...and now a blogger! This is my world. Categories |