tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71402844295175696062024-03-13T05:09:27.162-07:00Soldier PondA Memoir By CollageDeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-55435115811026882252011-03-13T17:17:00.000-07:002011-03-13T17:42:24.865-07:00Self-Recognition<div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 3/6/2011</span></i></div><div><br /></div>You don't write what you know, you<div>write because you know. At least, I</div><div>think the best stories are told from what</div><div>we've learned through the experiences</div><div>we've had. It's hard to pinpoint what I</div><div>know, but it's easy to write when I have</div><div>no expectations at all, no deadline for </div><div>which I get paid, no outline to follow,</div><div>no strict assignment fraught with</div><div>demands into which I must fit; a pattern</div><div>that's cut out for something like</div><div>building a ship or making a dress.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps I'm being totally false here</div><div>because having a deadline actually</div><div>motivates me to get off the</div><div>procrastinating seat. I've been paid for</div><div>writing, and it was awful; I've also</div><div>volunteered my writing services and</div><div>that was a learning experience, and in</div><div>both cases something specific was</div><div>required and I basically stunk at it.</div><div><br /></div><div>But, I think some great writers of fiction</div><div>have spoken truth because they've</div><div>allowed the places they've seen to</div><div>speak to the imagination in such a way</div><div>that the boundaries between fact and</div><div>fiction melted. But they called it fiction</div><div>when it was really derived from a whole</div><div>lot of fact. I'm only speaking about</div><div>good fiction here, like Hemingway's <i>The</i></div><div><i>Old Man and The Sea</i> and Harper Lee's</div><div><i>To Kill A Mockingbird.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>There's a true story aching to be told,</div><div>and these writers bring together pieces</div><div>of actual experience to tell the story.</div><div>We are blown open like we are with a</div><div>great opera or a symphony or a ballet or</div><div>a poem or a truth of any kind that hits</div><div>the nerve of consciousness.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know myself best when I am blown</div><div>wide open by the sound of a bird or a</div><div>piece of music or a delicious chocolate</div><div>mousse or a kiss unexpectedly</div><div>passionate.</div><div><br /></div><div>Whatever it is that makes an experience</div><div>realer in the one moment; that for me is</div><div>a touch of the ineffable, an awakening,</div><div>an epiphany, a moment of awe, and it </div><div>cannot be planned.</div><div><br /></div><div>But, I can practice for it by showing up</div><div>for whatever way works for me; and</div><div>writing my story works for me.</div><div><br /></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-32126591503738665932011-01-09T17:39:00.001-08:002011-01-14T04:33:54.477-08:00<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Vocation</span></i></b><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">The trajectory of life</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">takes on various characters</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">along the serpentine way</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">of its propulsion.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">Who can know whom, how</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">and, when or even venture</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">guessing what may be revealed</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">at the next unfolding?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">The best plans can only make</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">a slight dent in time or, with</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">an openness to variance in detail,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">the full catastrophe may be realized.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">What is call? What is destiny?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">What is plan? What is dream?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">What is mystery? What is desire?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">What is hope? What is fate?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">Mine initially was set by a poem's</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">last stanza *; but maybe not. Maybe</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">the call had been carried in my </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">mother's heart womb?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>*Yield who will to their separation</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>My object in living is to unite</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>My avocation and my vocation</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>As my two eyes make one in sight.</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>Only where love and need are one</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>And the work is play for mortal stakes</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>Is the deed ever really done for</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>Heaven and the future's sakes.</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i> -Robert Frost</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;">I don't know anyone who writes like this, nor do I have to. I write like this and that's enough. I sometimes think that it's all junk, but what of it. It's a great joy for me to write and maybe that is enough. The sled down the slippery slope of wanting recognition and fame rides in the back of my mind and sometimes even propels me forward. I'm secretly wishing someone will discover me and find me out for the genius I truly am. It may be laughable, but it is part of my ego's journey into oblivion, which is undeniably where I'm headed.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><i>AWW 1/4/2011</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-53622196703525914352010-03-26T17:38:00.001-07:002010-03-26T17:38:59.709-07:00<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino"><b><i>Going From Room To Room”<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 3/20/10<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:260.1pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i> </i></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">The store was downstairs. The front faced the road, which was never paved. Mom blamed the lack of business to that fact. It seems the town had voted on paving the other road, the one that led directly over the bridge in Soldier Pond. Across that bridge were three more stores to choose from. Our end of the village only had the one store. We still supplied several families – even those up the hill that led to a fork with Eagle Lake going south and Fort Kent going north. We were situated just east of both larger towns. That would have meant Fort Kent on the right and Eagle Lake on the left if you traveled up the hill to the fork from the store. On the way to Eagle Lake you came to the small settlement town of Wallagrass – Soldier Pond fell officially within the district of Wallagrass Plantation.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">When you walked in the front of the store, you pushed in a heavy wooden door that had a glass window from the waist up if you were an adult, chin up or nose up or above your head depending on how small a child you were. Upon entry, there were nail barrels on either side for people to sit on and chat. Later Mom would add an old stuffed rocker on the left side of the entrance, and my dog Chillie would love to climb into it to nap in the sunshine that flooded in through the large windows on either side of the door. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">The cats Blackie and Mitzie also liked the warm seat. Only those two cats were allowed into the store; the others stayed in the shed or roamed outside, and Dad cared for all the animals. He fed the cats in the shed and Chillie in our kitchen upstairs. He gave treats to them all in the side- store where he cut the meat. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Upon entering from the front, you were faced with aisles of canned goods on the left and bread and pastries on the right. Cereals and other boxed goods as well as baking products were on the wall shelves on the left. Against the wall on the right was a cooler for milk, cream, butter, soft drinks, and after the beer license, beer.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Mom was hoping someday we’d get a freezer for ice-cream, but we never did.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Behind the counter straight ahead and toward the rear of the store, was a whole wall of candy bars in their respective boxes, open and leaning forward displaying their contents. Right next to that display and directly behind the cash register were cigarettes packed in neat rows in a glass case and next to them were wall shelves of all kinds of medicines, elixirs and tonics for spring, cold remedies, aspirin, rubbing alcohol and the like.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Right next to the counter where the penny candies were also on display near the cash register, was a glassed-in white meat case displaying fresh meats, red hot-dogs, blood sausages known as (<i>boudin</i></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">) and cold cuts, and cheese. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">A great white scale was on a counter next to that. Here were weighed all the bulk goods: bolts and nuts and nails, the meat, and cookies from the glassed-in cookie case that held the coconut cookies and pinwheels and jelly-filled and date-filled and ginger snaps too. Underneath the scale were brown paper bags of varying sizes, very small to very large.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">There was a red metal peanut machine that stood on a pedestal in front of the counter with the scale. For one penny you could get a whole fistful of beer nuts. A bubble gum machine with jaw-breaking blue, red, green, yellow and orange balls filled the inside of a yellow stand with a clear thick plastic dome right next to the peanut machine. For one penny, you could try your hand at breaking your jaw. I was allowed one ball when my cousin Barbara came to visit in the summer from Biddeford, Maine.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">In an anti-room on the right and just off the main part of the store, there stood the large square kerosene tank. In that same space was a wall of cubby holes filled with various sized nails and nuts and bolts, spikes and screws. On a shelf above the kerosene tank were kerosene lamps for sale. There was a pickle barrel and a salt pork barrel and two more nail barrels for sitting and chatting away the minutes. There were overalls hanging on one wall, mostly for men, but some for children too; there were work gloves and large red handkerchiefs on shelves with brimmed caps and a few brimmed straw hats for working the potato houses and fields. There were hoes and shovels leaning up against the wall and brooms and dustpans too. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">The back door to the store led outside through the heavy wooden storm door and screened door where stood a long wooden bench for people to sit on and talk. The red gas pump stood by the side of the road; the Flying Horse emblem on a round white disk at the top. The car garage was out there too attached to the shed and just below the porch outside the house, which extended onto the fenced-in lawn up on a knoll and facing the water and the houses and fields across the water, including the schoolhouse now painted white, which had been red when Mom attended. Potato houses were lined up next to each other and down the embankment from the unpaved road and just above the railroad tracks, which were up a smaller embankment from the water’s edge.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Back inside was the side-store room through another doorway directly in front of you as you stepped in from the back entrance and past the kerosene tank now behind the opened storm-door. In this room, Dad cut the meat that was kept in the meat case and in the meat locker, which was located in that room. He had a butcher table and sharp knives and thick brown wrapping paper with white twine for wrapping. In that room, were kept cases of empty soda bottles and in season, fresh produce like onions and grapefruit and oranges, pears and peaches. There was a rack that held brightly colored envelopes of seeds with pictures of the product on the outside of the envelope. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">There was a wide window sill as well, where you could sit in the sun and look out of the tall wide glass window. Outside the window and directly across the road was the small grey building referred to as “the office” and more potatoes houses stood in line along the tracks. You could also see the water and, in winter time, the section that was scraped and used as an ice-skating rink. The evergreen woods and hills stretched out to infinity. We played cards, Old Maid, in that window. We played jacks too and laughed and sometimes ate potato chips and drank soda.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">The cellar door, a trap door in the floor, opened up; and a stairway led down into the dark earth basement where one light bulb with a pull chain hung from the ceiling and where the furnace was located and where Dad had nursed a sick cat or two or three over the years. He fed them canned milk and they came out looking picture-perfect after having survived awful cat fights in the woods. Dad fell down those same cellar stairs and broke his cheek bone when he drank too much one time. Then, he had to wear glasses permanently. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Behind the counter where the scale stood in the store proper was another door that led to the back-store, where cases of empty beer bottles and soda bottles were kept, and there was a large heavy old brown desk always over-loaded with files and papers. On the desk was a massive Underwood typewriter, which I loved to play with and on which I would write my small story books and poems. The room reeked of the smell of beer and soda, but I stared out the window that looked into the tall grass from the hillside, where we slid down in winter time and where the apple tree stood with its most fragrant spring blossoms. <i>My</i></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> apple tree, and I fought for it too, yelling at the boys who climbed it and ate the green apples, never allowing them to grow red.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">The stairs – that went up to where we lived and into our kitchen on the left, and out onto the screened-in porch on the right – were just outside the back-store. A door that led to the shed was also there at the foot of the same stairs, as well as, another screen door that went outside to where the bench was and near the store’s rear entrance.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">In the store proper again, Dad had an office behind the counter and to the left as you walked in through the front of the store. You couldn’t see it immediately until you walked up to the counter to pay for your purchase, but you could hear the music emanating from the sometimes staticy brown radio. The office was behind a walled-in section. It was a small office. On the wall hung a pay phone next to the large scenic wall-calendar. There was an old oak desk, a black phone and a swivel chair. This is where Dad read the morning paper from which he then made his daily tongue-in-cheek pronouncements goading the population who visited. A large filing cabinet stood against the wall. On top of the cabinet was a grey wire rack with clips that held all of the unpaid bills from the local poor people. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">We were all poor – in varying degrees.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-75319943594578944172010-03-26T17:05:00.000-07:002010-03-27T06:06:41.768-07:00<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;"><b><i>“What I Was Supposed To Do”</i></b></span><span style="font-family:Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:8.0pt;"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW w/Marta 3/13/10<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"><i> </i></span><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">I felt I never pleased her because I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do – and it stunned me when one of the sisters said to me at breakfast, where we were supposed to be silent in the Motherhouse refectory, “Just say what you think; just say what you believe.” Why had I been so stunned? Well, I was stunned and embarrassed because it occurred to me when she said this to me, that I’d always been afraid to say or think or believe the wrong thing, the unacceptable thing. Like wow! Here was this very bold, very intelligent, funny and never-lost-for-words sister telling me now at twenty-nine years old that in essence I should be thinking and speaking for myself, not mouthing stuff to please others, whether they were the traditionalists or the progressive-thinking bunch with whom I now found myself surrounded.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Where was I in this foray? What stand, in fact, was I taking? Obviously, I was sitting with Sister M and company; a table I chose. And these folk wanted passionately to do away with silence – along tradition-bound practice in religious life – intended to extend the sacred space we had just left – early Mass in the chapel upstairs. The new theology was about recognizing that every space was sacred space and every act by human beings – the act of speaking itself – was sacred as well. I do think we were all a bit nervous, a bit intimidated by the long-standing-centuries-old tradition for keeping silence at breakfast. But, some of us were less afraid than others and were eager to move ahead into twentieth century new theology, which actually had its roots in the past. It was more interpretation that was happening rather than totally new theology, but a view to tradition in practicing what we felt was truly intended; what the Jesuit founder meant when he said <i>seeing God in all things and all things in God. </i></span><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> We were, as Sisters of Mercy, very much instilled by the teachings of the Jesuit tradition, and we up-and-coming young sisters were trying to do exactly that in our own way. Some of the older sisters also understood this; others were miffed to high heaven and just viewed us as impertinent and letting the secular society dictate to us a way of living that went against what we had been taught – <i>what</i></span><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <i>we knew deep down to be</i></span><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <i>right</i></span><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">It was a hot time! And tempers flew hither and yon at community gatherings and meetings. Professionals were brought in to teach us how to communicate with one another. Many sisters said nothing – kept so much inside and were confused. They feared that their whole lives had no meaning if all this change was happening around them. The Latin Mass, gone; the long floor-length habits, gone; going places in a car unaccompanied, gone! Their world seemed to be falling apart. So in came the enneagram and Myer-Briggs – instruments to help us come to know and understand ourselves. It seemed an insult to many – since for decades they’d believed they were the brides of Christ and were totally given to God – and that was enough. More impertinence!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">But, what stunned me was my own inability to know myself and how for guidance I looked around me and though I knew deep down what was right and true for me – I needed concrete examples of others living out what I wanted to live out for myself.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">So Sister M kicked me hard that morning at the refectory table, because I’d been looking to her and to Sister A and others as examples of how to live authentically my own truth in this topsy-turvy world of change.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">My mother, my dear mother, had made it hard for me to know how to please her. She so wanted the best for me, but she stifled me too. Perhaps that’s why I so looked inward. I really don’t know. Being inward was my temperament also, I think. I was different from her yet I was like her too in some ways. We both loved beauty and balance and neatness and order. But, she felt distant to me too. When I was very young I felt she really didn’t want me around. If I’d said that to her later when I was older, I think she would have been very hurt. I don’t think she realized how dismissive she was of me. Now, I think she felt guilty a lot and perhaps ashamed too that she had committed such a sin and I was a constant reminder to her.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">I know now how painful her life had been – not without its moments of joy, but, she lived with a sick man, an alcoholic and no one saw his behavior as an illness; it was seen then as something evil and bad that my father was doing, and my mother could do nothing about it. They loved each other and stayed together and lived in the struggle bereft of understanding – or maybe they did understand and accept their reality. My father, who was not my biological father, was a very kind man and not one who would have intentionally hurt anyone. My mother knew this. And when I grew angry with him, she advised me not to because there was nothing he would not do for me. He loved me so much, and I knew this to be true.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Maybe love does conquer all. The old cliché is profoundly true – perhaps.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">And maybe all the turmoil we were experiencing in religious life had to happen in order for all of us to accept this truth once again. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">It seems the turmoil that appears in personal life and in the life of society is a kind of earthquake, that forces us to come to our senses, to come to what really matters!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-13928525630061033562010-03-14T17:52:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:56:14.334-07:00Nothing Better Out There<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 3/11/10<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; "> </span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Sometimes there is something better out there. Clichés are sometimes accurate. The bird song outside my window this morning is spectacular, and it is outside of me, but it’s my ability to appreciate the song, inside of me, that fills me with wonder.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Everything is out there and everything is inside also. When the inside is in sync with the outside, everything is best.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Whatever I’ve noticed around me, whether the woods, birds, wind, or waves, if my interior world was not at peace I was not able to appreciate and have a sense of wonder for my surroundings, but nature is a curious thing. It grabs you by the lapels and swings you around to its own way of vast perspective. Nature has power and magic that heals the interior spirit of a person.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Being out in nature does sooth the soul; there is a connection; a recognition of the self. Human beings are part of nature, not separate. I found out last Saturday that this is a basic belief of Shintoism, the far Eastern ancient religion and philosophy.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I was at a Zendo taking a course in Ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arrangeing. It is a contemplative and quiet exercise that in the end reflects the person’s interior world.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Isn’t that what we really seek in religion? We seek to have our inner world reflected back to us. There must be something sovereign and stately and filled with grace and unsurpassable beauty in the interior that makes us passionate for having it all reflected back to us.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">This morning my religion is bird song and even the helicopter fluttering overhead gives me a sense of permanence and place here in the golden city of my being.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-4534171093744121712010-03-14T17:43:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:49:16.396-07:00Connections<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Palatino, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><i> <!--StartFragment--> </i></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Palatino, serif;font-size:100%;"><i><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 3/9/10<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; "> </span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Frosting on the cake on a big plate with little plates all around makes a party. Pink petals in the frosting and green leaves. It’s Lent and my birthday. The exception to the rule; today, I can have cake and soda and a bit of candy too. My birthday always falls right after Lent begins. That’s just how it is. If Mom were truly strict about it, she would not allow this one digression. She is strict and she does allow for this one digression.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Oh, happy me! Only, on all my birthday pictures from little girl days, I don’t look happy one bit. What was happening? Was it that there were just too, too many of my peers in the room, I was no longer the center of real attention? They were all conversing and joking and laughing, but I felt left out. I always felt a bit on the margins, a ways away from my cousins and friends. I felt different from the beginning, it seems.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">I was happiest with warm sunny summer days daydreaming in the swing, running to the woods with my cousin Carl and building camps and playing imaginary games. I was happiest with my animals, Pepper and Mitzy and Blackie the cats, and my dog Chillie. Finding kittens in the shed all in a ball on a burlap bag made me happy; Mitzy looking content while feeding them; the smell of the dusty shed was a clean smell. It was outdoorsy though not quite. It felt natural. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">I did not like the smell of the beer bottles in the back store, all stacked in cases. Returnables. The smell of the soda bottles made the smell of the beer bearable.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </i></span><p></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-50390238147578610582010-03-14T17:38:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:41:58.943-07:00Something Changed<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 3/3/10<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I was in the shower several years ago now, when this strange song came to me. It moved me so deeply, I began singing it and tears rolled down my cheeks as I did so, and something inside me softened, softened -- ever-so-subtly, it was almost imperceptible. I only noticed it after I stopped singing, but I did not want to stop singing. The song, it seemed, was singing me. It was in French. What did that mean? That I sang in French? It felt like a connection to my childhood and my childhood friends -- a time of wonder and questioning and mystery and fear and anxiety too.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">But the French felt singular, felt unique and universal all at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">It felt like some deep, deep cry had welled up and it could only be expressed in song. The melody, I found haunting and the words even more so. They were mysterious and filled with wonder.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>Et les petite enfants, (3 times), ils vont chanter, ils vont chanter. Repeat<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>Et les petits enfants, (3 times), ils vont danser, ils vont danser, ils vont danser Repeat<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>Et les petits enfants, (3 times), ils vont chanter, its vont danser. End<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">It went on like this for about a half hour, I think, as if I'd been in some kind of trance; and something deep inside me softened, something changed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-12179754175859128722010-03-14T17:34:00.000-07:002010-03-16T16:12:08.504-07:00Three-Ring Circus<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 2/13/10 w/Marta<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">Color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Right away I see lots and lots of color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The non-subject, non-topic for me always inspires something even if it’s nothing at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For some reason – mysterious to me – this non-topic inspires dislike.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">Perhaps because circus reminds me of the closest thing to what I experienced as circus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The Northern Maine Fair, which took place in Presque Isle for all of my growing-up years was not something I especially enjoyed, although I was expected to enjoy it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I disliked the fast, tortuous rides that turned the body in every possible posture—the very thought of which made me physically ill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t even like the idea of the so-called more gentle merry-go-round with its tall colorfully painted horses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’d never get me on one of those.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">I did accept, at least, one time riding in one of the booths that were also scattered among the horses on the merry-go-round.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I felt dizzy afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My aunt went with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">The one and only thing I did enjoy was the pink cotton candy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And someone in the family, usually my uncle, winning some kind of little doll or toy animal on a stick for me to carry home after the day was over delighted me as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These were the high points.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">The fireworks at night, I dreaded most of all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I loved the colors and beautiful forms in the sky, but the noise made me terribly nervous and was too much like thunder for my liking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was closer than thunder and so much the more nerve-racking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t remember Mom and Dad taking me to this affair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I do remember my aunt and uncle, who were visiting from New York taking me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sometimes my Maine cousins were present.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s all a blur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They would have been there, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">I do recall one year when my closest cousin Carl coaxed me into the tilter-world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He said, “It’ll be fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>See, it’s not so bad.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By then, I was probably ten or eleven years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I figured I should give this a try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe it will be fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was not.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">I found myself certain I was going to die during this awful whirling business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We sat inside something like a cup-and-saucer-shaped enclosure and held on to a metal bar, while it began slowly at first to turn and while turning being whirled around along with other cups and saucers on this metal platform that was also moving round and round like a giant turn table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I must have been out of my mind to agree to this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I screamed at the top of my lungs, it seemed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But no one heard me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wanted it to stop. I wanted to get off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I couldn’t even hear myself scream, the sound of the whole thing drowned out every other possible noise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think my cousin Rita was with me in this thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Each cup and saucer held only two people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When the rig finally came to a stop, I tried to pretend I was fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Get up,” she said to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“It’s over.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You could have fooled me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was seeing green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Everything was green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I did get off the thing, but whirled around for the rest of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was sick, sick, sick – and knew then, that I would never, ever get on one of these rides again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">But, I think a few years later, I rode the roller coaster.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then, it was for sure – never again.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">There are things in life that are worth trying at least once, but then, there are things that are best well-left alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Later on, I would trust my gut more than what others of my peers would insist was great fun.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">Perhaps I missed out on lots of fun, but I think not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I chose my own spaces and places – even if it meant I was more of an observer than a participant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even when it came to marriage and children; if I had really, really thought that would have been fun for me, I feel sure now that I would have tried this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know all of this better in retrospect from my current vantage point – so many years away from adolescence and young adulthood – all of which was hard labor for me to navigate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m so relieved now to have it all behind me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I am pleased with things in my life just as they are right now.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">I have questioned, I have explored, I still do, but with less of “my life depends on it” feeling inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I never married.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have no children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve felt sad about that in the past.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">I have a very significant other in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s really quite wonderful that we’ve found each other – different from one another as we are – we also share some common threads that bind us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t feel the need to examine all of it that closely anymore – even as I write this – I have a propensity I know to do just that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, that too is growing less and less.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">It’s hard to put into words the really close stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some distance is required to get some kind of expressive hold on it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">I read a quote by Erica Jong not too long ago.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Something like this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“All we humans need in life are something to eat, something to drink and someone to love us.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">I like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s not someone to love that she says, but someone to love us – which I think is more honest and true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To feel loved is the most wonderful thing in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’re always saying or hearing that we should love one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Love is a verb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s important to love someone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s important to love yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it feels ever more true to me that we need to be loved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And that means that we also need to let love in; to believe that we are loved; that it is true when someone says they love us; that they really mean it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, again that implies that I must do something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have to be able to let the love in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m getting weary of doing so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But in order to eat and drink, I must work, so it’s no surprise that I must work also to allow someone to love me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;">Letting someone love me in the way they want to love me without my dictating the way I want to be loved is also my work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it’s a work I can enjoy and a ride I can tolerate even if it is a bit of a tilt-a-whirl or tilter world.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:81.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-57824430598416053972010-03-14T17:32:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:34:20.110-07:00In A Group<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 2/10/10<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">It was a year ago this past January that you and I went to the little pond not far from Wayside, where you lived, and where you had worked for the good part of thirty years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You recounted to me how as a young child you came out here and sledded down the hill with your friends and how this little pond would freeze up and you’d go ice-skating.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Well, here we were in the van when a flock of ducks flew in from, it seemed, nowhere and landed on the icy pond, and with their webbed feet attempted to walk on the ice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There must have been about twenty or thirty of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">A smaller group broke out from the larger flock; they were determined to walk along the pond’s edge.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The others remained still – watching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These daring ten or so flip-flopped on the ice sliding along, stopping as if to size up the situation and then begin again.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Undaunted, they walked on the ice and their bodies cast a shadow that was simply too much for a photographer like you not to notice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You walked to the pond with your camera and shot away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I, cold, on that frosty morning drive, remained inside the van and watched you watching them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I have one of the black and whites here now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m looking at it, Fran, and I’m remembering how we delighted in that moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.25in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-34646986816984191532010-03-14T17:25:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:31:11.885-07:00Other People's Stories<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 1/27/10 </i></span></p> <h1 style="margin-right:1.0in"><span style="font-size: 11pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">They do interest me, like a good film offers me a great escape from my own paranoia. I find other people’s stories can be wonderful life lessons for me. I find other people’s stories inform me of my own story. I’m not ashamed anymore like I used to be. I’m not as timid and scared of risk-taking as I used to be. I’m not so wrapped up about what other people will think or say about me like I was when I was fifteen and shy, shy, shy – seemingly afraid of my own shadow.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1> <h1 style="margin-right:1.0in"><span style="font-size: 11pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Now, there’s an interesting phrase – </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">afraid of my own shadow. </span></i></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">And well I should be. What lurks in the shadow is a fearsome thing. Writing assists me in meeting my shadow head-on; my envy, my jealousy, my longings and selfish pre-occupations, my guilty delights.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1> <h1 style="margin-right:1.0in"><span style="font-size: 11pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Writing is a pressure-release-valve that allows me an exploring debit card by which I’m not permitted to take out and put on paper more than what’s in the bank. It’s my bank of life experience. I’m not allowed to write other people’s stories and pass them off as my own. I could hardly do this, since I cannot know first-hand other people’s experiences from the inside – and for me what’s inside is </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">all </span></i></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">that </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">really matters.</span></i></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.25in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-56989113349952882342010-03-14T17:17:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:23:48.324-07:00We All Have To Go To Sleep<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">DeAnn Louise Daigle 1/25/10</span></i><div></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>We all have to go</div><div>to sleep sometime.</div><div><br /></div><div>We may not be ready</div><div>or we may.</div><div><br /></div><div>It won't matter.</div><div>When the time comes</div><div><br /></div><div>and come it will.</div><div>We all have to go to sleep.</div><div><br /></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-41427932005113011602010-03-14T17:11:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:13:14.913-07:00For The First Time<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 1/23/2010</i></span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i> </i></span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Poets House. After about five minutes of looking around and then sitting down, I realize, clearly, that I hadn’t come here to read other people’s poetry. I had come here to write my own.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I came in and was greeted by a young man probably in his twenties, “Welcome. Is this your first time at Poets House?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">“Thank you. No, I came in September at the opening.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">“Would you mind signing the guest book?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I signed my name, filled in my e-mail address though I doubted they could read it. People generally have trouble reading my e-mail address when I write it. I made a small donation, went to straighten out my looks in the restroom, and debated as to whether or not I should hang up my coat by the entrance, leaving it there while I went along upstairs. There were about three coats and jackets hanging on the clothes rack. I decided to carry my two hundred dollar feather coat upstairs.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">The cushy chair by the window is wide and easily supports me and my coat and my bag as well. It’s quiet … very quiet, and the staff tip toes on the wooden floor.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Suddenly this feels like a sacred space. It holds art and it invites art to be made here. There’s only the droning sound of the air system. The windows overlook the Hudson River, the playground in the foreground and New Jersey in the background on the other side of the Hudson.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">People are jogging along the boardwalk and parents and children – only a few on this cold yet sunny Saturday morning – are in the playground. Parents are pushing swings while children enjoy the movement while parents converse among one another. Other children are quietly playing in sandboxes and some are rocking in a kind of single see saw while others are skipping about. </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Lots of jungle gyms are empty for now. It’s like watching a silent moving picture show. The window glass blocks out the outdoor noises.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">The icons in this sacred space are shelves of books containing the words and phrases of artists. No stained glass windows here. Plenty of daylight from the long windows fills the lightly painted space where white and yellow walls reflect light back on itself and throughout. Long florescent suspended ceiling light bulbs hang over the stacks down away from where I sit. </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">My pew offers a splendid view.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Now, there are more running children in the playground and the jungle gyms are being used and parents walk around after their tiny progeny. Signs that read <i>Stop</i></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> and <i>Raise Plow</i></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> and <i>No Standing Anytime</i></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> line the side street where cars are parked and not parked along the playground space. Street lights – the old fashioned kind – line the side walk too. These are not gas lit like in the old days. They are electric and probably on a timer set to go off at nightfall. They give a pretty and romantic feel to this whole outdoor space. </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Cabs drive by – all silently. The trees are bare of leaves and I know spring and summer will change the view. These trees will obscure some of the river view and some of the New Jersey panorama. What a great soft and silent space this is! I am delighted to be here.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Two helicopters hover above the Hudson and a jet leaves its silken stream across a lightly blue and yellow sky. Children slide down the curved and winding yellow slide and a tiny little fellow runs back to his red stroller.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">A boat named Zephyr is heading up the Hudson. And a few people are walking dogs. Now, children – older ones – are running up the yellow curvy slide – young boys about nine or ten years old. They’re running and jumping on and off the jungle gyms like the boys back home did on the railroad cars. Boys – full of energy and daring.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">A man is parallel parking a car across the street and does it with admirable ease.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">A woman runs out of a car to jump the low divide and into the playground. A man leaps over the same divide; looks like she’s relieving him. She’s come to be with her child in the playground. There are two children and she’s up on the tiered platform with them. And Dad just returned. All four of them are now up on the jungle gym-like platform.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I am delighted to be here.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I must go now; grocery shopping to do and errands to run. Jim and I plan to see a movie later.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">This is my first time writing at Poets House. I will return again.</span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-73774717510073699212010-03-14T16:13:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:10:49.610-07:00Leaving What Was Known<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 1/20/2010</i></span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i> </i></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I felt an amazing inner freedom that was more exuberance than anything I’d felt in years.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">It was warm and sunny, I was heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the bus ride down Fifth Avenue. I’d just left East Harlem and talking with Teresa. We had gone for a walk in Central Park near the Reservoir. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I’d just told her that I was leaving religious life and had initiated an appointment with our then Major Superior, Sr. Laboure. She had wanted me to wait a month before our next meeting. This entailed a trip to Portland, Maine, where our Motherhouse was located. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Teresa had been wonderfully understanding when I’d told her. I had been a bit anxious about her reaction. But, it turned out that she was deeply supportive of my decision, knowing it had not been made lightly.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I admired her for her commitment to service and great love of the people who were homeless, her dedication to working with them and her love of teaching. I admired her clear-sightedness. I guess she saw that I was beginning to develop my own clear-sightedness, and she rejoiced with me – even though neither one of us knew where my life was going.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I clearly was taking charge and though nothing was formulated by way of a great deal of planning just yet, we both felt the rightness of my decision to leave religious life.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Perhaps it was in her great joy for me that I found inner freedom to at last trust myself. It was this that was so extraordinarily exhilarating on that sunny Sunday afternoon.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I was free at last!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Even though I was asked to wait a month, I knew my decision had been made and it was as good as done. I would be free to explore this world and God on m own – taking with me all that I had learned and creating the space to learn more and more and more.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-51502380332613143212010-03-14T16:06:00.000-07:002010-03-14T16:09:27.099-07:00Declaring Independence<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 1/20/2010</i></span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Helvetica"><i> </i></span><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I don’t remember how I got the ball rolling on this issue, but I do remember the early morning at the School of Prayer, waking up and thinking, weighing the pros and cons of leaving.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">In front of me outside the third story window, I looked at the Twin Towers rising above the trees in Washington Square Park. They were magnificent. Such a statement of imagination and possibility! I would miss this view. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I would miss – maybe – the early Morning Prayer and meditation together in community. I would not miss the rush that followed. Prayer and meditation were supposed to prepare us for the day, but often these practices felt artificial due to the momentous responsibility that required our earning a living for the good of all. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I never did integrate the contemplative with the active while I remained in religious life, and something inside indicated to me that I never would – if I stayed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Hadn’t I committed for life to the community? Would I be happy continuing to live in this way? I had learned earlier that I did have options. But once you make a commitment, do you still have options?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I had lived on my own before. I had paid the bills, the rent, phone, electricity and heat. I knew how to do these things. I had had a checking account and savings account. I had lived on my own before. I knew how to shop for food and clothing. I had lived alone.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I was familiar with all those feelings from a past of almost twenty years before, and now I was about to do it again in a similar fashion – leaving what was known for what was unknown. I had to do it! It was about choosing</span><span style="font-size:15.0pt;font-family:Helvetica"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">life over death – once again!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-52056941332300306772010-03-14T16:02:00.000-07:002010-03-14T16:05:23.636-07:00On My Own<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 1/16/10</i></span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><i> </i></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Boston meant I was on my own for the very first time. No curfews, no supervision, no classes to attend. I would need a job to pay rent; that was the practical piece. I also needed to eat. But after that, the field was open. I could walk the city, observe, write, dream, hope, fall in love … or not.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Mom and Dad were thirteen hours away by bus ride north, Aunt Rill and Uncle Jerry, my second parents, practically speaking, were five hours away south by train.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I was on my own in regards to my daily life, and this was like breathing rarefied air, seeing clearly with no impediments. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I was no kid. At twenty-three, this was where and when I got my first apartment. I could fix it up in any way I wanted. So, I bought unfinished furniture that I could sand down and antique. A table, two chairs, a dry sink, which would be my dresser; I could store my sweaters and shirts and other folded clothes in it. Yet, it did not look bed-roomy.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Since this small studio apartment was my home, I wanted it to look homey. The table had leaves that folded down, but would also turn into a larger table if I needed it. I would have to get a sofa bed. I wanted a long sofa, which would fill up the wall space and provide plenty of sitting space for guests. And, of course, a rocking chair – a wonderful wooden chair, which I painted black and stenciled the upper back with colorful yet dainty flowers, red and pink with green stems. I painted gold squiggles on the arms. I loved the way it looked. I bought a small padded cushion for the seat that matched the predominantly red braided rug for the floor space. When I moved in, I had brought one suitcase, one portable typewriter that Dad had bought me when I was in high school, my bible and a hair dryer. A small radio/TV set that Dad felt I just had to have also came along. This was really impressive. I’d never seen one before. The screen was about five inches and the picture black and white. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I slept in my friend’s sleeping bag until I found just the right sofa bed – a soft gold and black patterned material. It was perfect! The antique painted furniture when finished was a dark wood looking like oak. It took several weeks to complete; each coat having to dry before the next color was applied. This was now September 1972. I had arrived in August. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Boston was where I’d come right after high school. I had studied at a fashion retailing school for a year. I’d returned home to northern Maine afterwards, knowing I’d return to Boston, hopefully soon. I’d get a job, work. Save my money and return. Someday. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I would write and I would live in the city. Someday.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">My best friend had gone to Bates College right out of high school and she met her husband-to-be there. I got a job at W. T. Grant Company, lived at home with my parents, insisted on paying rent (they kept protesting), and saved as much as I possibly could so that I would return to Boston. Someday. That was in 1967, so I’m digressing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">It was in the summer of 1972 when Linda and David had settled just outside of Boston in Norwood, and I was on my way to New York to visit Aunt Rilla and Uncle Jerry. I stopped to see Linda and David. David was studying at Harvard School of Medicine and Linda was teaching math at a high school near where they lived. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">She and I went into Boston and walked around the city. I took her to places I’d remembered from my experience there in ’66 and ’67. I so loved the city— the music of its traffic, its tall buildings, the freedom it inspired, the possibility it offered.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">Linda challenged me when she said, “ …then why not move here?” “I will someday”, I said. “Why not now?” I had saved money. I could do it. I could. Mom was still working. Dad was getting older, but he was fine at the moment. His heart seemed good after several years with a pacemaker. He had made medical history in Maine when he became the first to receive a pacemaker in the early 60s at Portland’s Maine Medical Center.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">This seed of possibility had been planted in my mind. The whole time I was in New York, I thought about it. Linda was very practical and she had an answer for every question I had posited that might have stood in the way of my move to Boston. I would do it!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">I did do it! And after a week, with Linda’s help, I’d found an apartment. I would find a job within two weeks – and then the rest became mystery. I had no idea how all of it would unfold. I was on my own!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:96.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino">The exhilaration of being on my own was sheer ecstasy. And I would let nothing interfere with that feeling. The heartbreak that would later follow could never take away that first sheer, exuberant, foot-lifting joy of independence. That would remain firmly planted forever – though tucked away for a while. It has remained … and will, I know.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Palatino"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-16776868938488250632010-03-14T16:00:00.001-07:002010-03-14T16:00:52.844-07:00What Happened<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-1.0in"><span style="font-size:8.0pt"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 1/13/10<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-1.0in"><span style="font-size:8.0pt"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">It was the turn of phrase like turning a corner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was the sound of the word spoken aloud that brought a tingling sensation up my spine, the back of my neck to the frontal lobe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was awakened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was awakened.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">There’s no quiet explanation for this occurrence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Silence says it best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yet, the urge remains for me to explain and so to acknowledge that words affect me greatly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I always knew I wanted to write, but write about what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I could never say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It eluded me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Only when I placed pen to paper would it be revealed what I would write. There’s intense excitement in this for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, it’s no way, practically speaking, to earn a living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Practically speaking, how could I support myself – pay rent, eat, buy clothes – only the necessities, mind you, but they are necessities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This remained for years and years and years the perplexing question.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">It wasn’t like being a Beatle – one of the boys in the band, one of a group of singers, song writers –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>wonderful song writers making wonderful music with their words and musical instruments.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Suddenly becoming famous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Working, working at their art, perfecting and publishing by performing out in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Becoming acclaimed – rightfully so – given the excellence of their art and artistry.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">No, my writing is much more hidden – not great writing like Dickenson and Poe.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Nevertheless, I write my own story, my own experience of my own life and vision and dreaming and hoping and searching and loving and losing and finding and choosing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-29132674564693092062010-03-14T15:50:00.000-07:002010-03-14T15:55:58.843-07:00Not According To Plan<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Palatino, serif; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 12/27/09 for 1/16/10</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Without even being conscious of it, I’ve had expectations – perhaps I’ve achieved having expectations through listening to others and theirs and also to their ability to achieve what they expected. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:2.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Having had mine doused a number of times, I began to settle with not having any real expectations of my own – except of course, when I did have them without realizing consciously that I did.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:1.0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Argument only for argument’s sake is what often happens when my significant other will not go along with my suggestions. Drop it. I’ve learned. Just put it out there then drop it. That too is perfectly okay in the end. We love each other, I tell myself. That is enough – and that has gone totally according to plan.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-24817692790072568822010-03-14T15:43:00.000-07:002010-03-14T15:55:07.240-07:00Old And New<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-style: italic; font-family:Palatino, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">DeAnn Louise Daigle</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">AWW 12/12/09</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:40.5pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">There were trunks in the attic at Uncle Eddie and Aunt Eva’s house. They were treasure trunks for sure. We pulled out of them old dresses, long ones, short ones, shawls and hats, gloves and shoes. Who did these belong to? How did they wind up in this house? Why were they moved here? Who valued them enough to make that move? I question this now, but not then. That attic was a wonder. It offered rich fare for our imaginations. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:40.5pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">My cousins Rita and William and sometimes my friend Norma would come along. And Joyce too and how could I forget, my cousin Roland, who was my secret and dearest love. We were all in the same age range with only a few years separating us or even a few months. Rita, Norma, and I were only months apart; Roland and Joyce a year older and William a couple of years younger than Rita, the baby of my Uncle and Aunt’s eight children.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Bernard’s comic book collection was up there too – in the glorious attic – and we sometimes took out the scary ones and Rita and William and I would huddle together in a corner with a flash light when it was raining, and we read them and became scared and thrilled. We heard creaking sounds from the house, and sometimes the cat spooked us and we nearly jumped out of our skins.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">How old were we? Six … seven … eight … nine? It seems that attic offered us hours of sheer entertainment almost at any time of year.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">It was also in part an unfinished space. Between the attic beams where the floor ended, there was only thick brown paper, and if we accidentally stepped there we might come through the living room ceiling, so we had to be very careful when walking those beams, and we were strongly encouraged not to, that we should not fall or put a foot down on that paper part.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">The admonishment was scary and added to the thrill, because, of course, the boys walked the beams all the time. The boys also – the older ones – jumped the railroad cars, when they were parked on the tracks and not moving. The temptation to do so was just too great. We’d see them from the screen porch at my house. They dared one another, ran and jumped from one car to the other – like in the Westerns we watched. The boys loved playing cowboy and Indians. That had to be the favorite game of the day until one of them acquired a basketball hoop and it was anchored to a large tree in front of his house. Then, making baskets quickly displaced playing cowboy and Indians.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">We girls, however, never tired of hauling out the treasures from the old trunks and dressing up like grown-ups pretending to attend parties, funerals and weddings.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">I took to playing priest one day and used a roll of Necco Wafers in their pastel roundness as communion hosts. I’m amazed now as I was then that I could so influence Rita and William to kneel down and receive the wafers as if they were actually receiving Holy Communion. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">I was also fascinated that I could convince Rita to eat the mush I made with Ritz Crackers, water, salt and pepper – telling her it was the pabulum, she as the baby, would eat from me as the mother. She ate it. And this never ceased to amaze me. I would never have eaten it myself. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">I’m sixty years old and I can remember it all as if it were yesterday. Circumstances pulled us away from one another when we were still young. And these memories are for the most part the only ties that bind us now. As adults we rarely see one another.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Joyce, dear, dear Joyce; she was so excited when I was assigned to Eagle Lake. She braved a blizzard to come out to see me the evening of the day I arrived. I opened the door on that blustery January night – and there she was stepping in out of the howling wind, snow-covered just from her walk from the car to the house. We hadn’t seen each other in how many years? Oh my, maybe fifteen – since high school, at least, when my parents and I moved away. But she threw her arms around me and kissed me and hugged me. We kept in touch after that evening and even after I moved back to Portland. She was one of the few of my childhood friends, who never moved out of Soldier Pond.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Joyce married one of those ruffian boys, whose dad was a potato farmer. He and his brothers inherited the father’s farm, had worked with their dad on the farm from the time they could walk. She and Carl married right after high school. They had two boys. Her life was surrounded by men, she would say. And she relished my visits whenever I came up north to see relatives.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">“I rarely get to sit down at a table with a good woman friend,” she said to me on one occasion. She lived with such passion – even when we were children, she had intense energy and love of life. It seemed cruel that fate would have her die at forty. I just didn’t want to believe the news of her death. But, I saw how she lived, smoking cigarettes, and eating junk – that day at the kitchen table. She was blond, blue-eyed and buzzed on caffeine, which she didn’t need.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">She had always been pretty, and I couldn’t understand a lot of what was happening to her. She worked hard, she lived that way too. She was always interested in me and wanted to know what I was doing. Yet, part of me so much admired her, that she had a husband and two children. I was a woman, married to an institution that claimed we women in community were married to God. What did that mean? I would never have children. But I’d never really given up hope that maybe one day I’d meet a man and we’d love each other. Even when I wasn’t suppose to hope for that.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">I wish Joyce and I could have talked more. I wish she hadn’t died so young. She had been so very brave. She had sought out her real mom, been profoundly disappointed when she found her, but gained a loving grandfather from that experience. She had loved her adoptive parents, but she was compelled to know her own history. In her thirties, she embarked on the venture; she had done it; she had had to know. I so admired her for that. She’d written me a long detailed letter with the account of her search. It was written on lined yellow notebook paper; page after page of her adventure, her pain and disappointment and her acceptance and ultimate triumph. She would never know her real father.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">Interesting how life unfolds. I didn’t know then, that I would embark upon a similar search a few decades later. I would never get to share my story with her.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;">This having to know is such a compelling and tenacious demon for some of us. Some questions, however, will never be answered to our satisfaction. Making our peace with that state of affairs is also imperative. And the demon never goes away.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:.5in"><span style="font-family:Palatino;font-size:11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-39914627391138351042010-03-13T14:37:00.000-08:002010-03-13T15:14:23.277-08:00Anger<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 2/10/10</i></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">No, no I don't want to go back to</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">meditation or church or worshipping</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">groups of any kind.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">No, no; all of that is past for me; there's no</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">telling about the future, of course.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Certainly, for now, all of that kind of</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">religious practice is out for me.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I had my share of it. I don't mind, but I'm</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">glad it's over. Instead, I've always wanted</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">to bring the actual practice of meditation</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">and worship to my daily life; somehow</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">integrate it, not as a separate matter but as</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">something lived. Or else, it all means</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">nothing to me.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">None of it I would change, really. I met</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">some great and wonderful people and</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">some things were difficult for me, but grace</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">was always active. There's a religious term.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But I've found no substitute for the word</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>grace.</i> Perhaps that hold-over can remain.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Grace -- a physical manifestation of an</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">invisible or spiritual power; the presence of</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">care and fortitude and benevolence.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Webster's Dictionary defines grace as <i>1 a: </i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>unmerited divine assistance given humans for</i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>their regeneration or sanctification b: a virtue</i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>coming from God c: a state of sanctification</i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>enjoyed through divine grace, </i>and so on.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Anger too is grace, I think. Sometimes for</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">some of us, anger is the only thing that</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">wakes us up and pushes us forward. For</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">me, it's been that way, I know. Every major</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">decision I have made in my life has come</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">from the grace of anger.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I do not recommend this be so. I am only</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">stating that for me, it has been so.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Some sense of indignation has so riled me</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">that I was made to come to my senses by it.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When I refused to return to Fort Kent High</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">School to retrieve my records for the move</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">to Presque Isle High School, it was due to</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the utter embarrassment I had experienced</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">at that school.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It caused me to weep -- even as an adult,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">years later -- to recount what had happened</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">to me there. It was in part due to one</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">student's ability to so put me down and a</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">teacher's lack of understanding and a</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">principal's weighty need to punish a whole</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">class for the behavior of a few -- which for</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">me was utter chaos and injustice, the</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">breaking point of my humiliation.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was anger and heartbreak that caused me</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">to do the right thing by my father when he</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">was in the hospital and dying. I would</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">return from Boston to spend the next three</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">years at home with my parents through the</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">events of my father's death and my</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">mother's grieving.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was anger that people could so meddle in</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">my personal life as to cause me to move</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">away and into another way of life because I</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">felt the need to do something, but it had to</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">be on my own terms, not anyone else's.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was anger that pushed me ahead once</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">again when I was compelled to leave one</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">way of life not knowing what lay ahead, but</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">certain that the decision was a forward</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">moving one.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was anger and a sense of freedom at last</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">that provoked me to pull back from too</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">much activity in order to contemplate what</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">really mattered in my life and how my </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">involvement in the world as a peacemaker</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">had to begin with my own inner peace and</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">sense of solitude. I had to get at the root of</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">my anger in order to better realize that</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">peace would become a life choosing, not</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">just a by-product that came without effort.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Anger is grace when anger moves me</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">toward peace and the hard, hard work of</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">peace-making within myself and in my</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">relationships with the world around me.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Consciousness does not allow for in-</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">authenticity; consciousness frees me to</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">cooperate by choice with grace, and often</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">anger has been the wake-up call.</span></span></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-28879364158137964202010-01-03T12:11:00.000-08:002010-01-03T12:49:30.486-08:00<b><i>See Saw</i></b><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div>Mary Ann was my very best friend.</div><div>I did not want anything to change.</div><div><br /></div><div>But change, it would come</div><div>Knocking on the door of an idyllic</div><div>Childhood - if only in my mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>I did not want to leave my home</div><div>Where the cats played and the dog</div><div>Followed me to school and the woods</div><div>Were my wonderland.</div><div><br /></div><div>But leaving, it would come</div><div>Knocking on the door of an idyllic</div><div>Childhood - if only in my mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>I longed for benefit and holding on</div><div>Forever to all the pretty places and all</div><div>The pretty faces.</div><div><br /></div><div>But letting go, it would come</div><div>Knocking on the door of an idyllic</div><div>Dreaming - if only in my mind.</div><div><br /></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">12/24/09</span></i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-65463441785291365872010-01-03T12:05:00.000-08:002010-01-03T12:10:24.753-08:00<i><b>Christmas Past</b></i><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div>It's time to sing to dance a snowflake -</div><div>fake or real. What's the deal?</div><div><br /></div><div>I remember cutting paper snowflakes</div><div>for the classroom windows in the</div><div>white wooden schoolhouse I attended</div><div>as a child,</div><div><br /></div><div>the smell of wet mittens around the hot</div><div>potbellied stove in the center of the</div><div>classroom near the entrance, where we</div><div>hung our coats and left our overshoes dripping</div><div>with the melting snow.</div><div><br /></div><div>Swish, swish, swish</div><div>in our snowsuits we went walking to the desk</div><div>and chair.</div><div>Excitement in the air!</div><div><br /></div><div>I brought my RCA Victrola and Christmas</div><div>45s to play for the party later in the day.</div><div><br /></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">12/24/09</span></i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-92114960026269465882010-01-03T12:01:00.000-08:002010-10-29T19:13:17.729-07:00<b><i>Considerations</i></b><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Sometimes, just the way the light falls on a building,</span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">there is enough world to encompass</span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">all things.</span></i></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">There are embraces and there are embraces.</span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Light and shadow constitute design, division,</span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">and structure too for</span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">all things.</span></i></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Sun shines through a window on a chair or</span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">a wall; that's all. </span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">It seems to be enough in </span></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">all things.</span></i></b></div><div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">12/23/09</span></i></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-46368443624536421412010-01-03T11:18:00.000-08:002010-01-03T11:54:58.272-08:00<b>Stretches</b><div><br /></div><div>Stretches of time where there is silence and not a whole</div><div>lot of activity. Quiet time. Quiet time. Intimidating</div><div>sometimes, this quiet time. It is unusual not to be </div><div>moving about and doing. Sitting still is frequently </div><div>unnerving, unsettling, confusing and confounding. </div><div>Boredom is a by-product of doing nothing at all, it </div><div>seems. Rushing about, looking busy, preoccupied </div><div>seems to be important and feeds what we know. Look </div><div>busy. Pretend if you have to. Stillness speaks. When </div><div>listening, stillness does speak. Long stretches of silent </div><div>time can create loneliness - or not. Stretches of silence. </div><div>Stretches of stillness. Coming home. Coming home.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">12/23/09</span></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-74673600415886561312010-01-03T11:10:00.000-08:002010-01-03T11:16:48.844-08:00<b>Coming to Light</b><div><br /></div><div>Transition to transpire</div><div>An evocation coming</div><div>Coming higher and</div><div>Yet higher</div><div>A song, a bird</div><div>A bird, a song</div><div>Who makes for splitting</div><div>Hairs?</div><div>Who cares?</div><div>A bird, a song</div><div>A steeple spire</div><div>A church across</div><div>The street and</div><div>Aiming higher</div><div>For all the tensions</div><div>Of earthly life</div><div>The strife</div><div>The lines outside</div><div>My window, his, actually,</div><div>Of human beings</div><div>Waiting for a meal.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">4/2/2009</span></div><div><br /></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7140284429517569606.post-12612637214146979622010-01-03T10:56:00.000-08:002010-01-03T11:07:06.429-08:00May 8, 2009 A Poem<div><br /></div><div>You and Jung have something to teach me;</div><div>I'm not quite sure what that is.</div><div>Perhaps it has something to do with compassion.</div><div>We all have our demons</div><div>Or dark side or what-not. Yes,</div><div>That what-not is the thing we wish we did not have.</div><div>The shadow - dark and light;</div><div>The over bright day and dark, dark night.</div><div><br /></div><div>I come here, sit in the chair and wait for</div><div>Something to come that I can talk with you about.</div><div>Sometimes it's right there on the tip of my tongue,</div><div>But sometimes I have to just leave be and</div><div>Notice the rug patterns at my feet</div><div>And talk about that until some pertinent piece</div><div>Comes up from who knows where? The unconscious? The</div><div>Stratosphere? The subtle kinetic field of the two of us sitting here?</div><div><br /></div><div>There's more I want to say and I feel like I'm drifting now, but</div><div>Wait, yes. There's this. My fear of being abandoned, my fear</div><div>Of being dismissed, my fear of not being loved enough, my</div><div>Fear of betrayal and rebuff.</div><div><br /></div><div>And you, you remind me all the time of the search for myself,</div><div>And that I alone have the answers to the calming of my fears</div><div>And the wiping of my tears. And I'm trying, trying so hard</div><div>To figure it all out, but sometimes now I feel it all becomes</div><div>Real when I sit still - not so much on the outside as on the</div><div>Inside. When I am still and come home to myself, the what-not</div><div>All falls into place and a smile, subtle, almost an embrace,</div><div>Warms my face.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>DeAnn Louise Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02687383456414261522noreply@blogger.com0