Being Wise Thirty-four

                                 Judy and Mikhail     1992 Kostroma, Russia

Being Wise Thirty-Four

September 26, 2021

It has been what? Nine years?

I don’t think he has ever asked

for new glasses, or not for years.

That’s the expensive part. I paid

for these. They’ve lasted, even

when I fell and bent them. Tough,

like me, like you. You had trouble

speaking except about my eyes.

When I did the eye test for your

assistant, I couldn’t see the letters

with my right eye, only with the

left. I think I was having a brain

bleed, like I had last Monday night.

I was upset then and couldn’t read

the page numbers. I’d learned he

was retiring. I asked if he wanted

to. He said yes. Could he recommend

another eye doctor? No, but they’d

assign me one. He studied my eyes,

now dilated. Then he said, “There’s

no problem. They’re normal. They’re

fine." I told him about my new disease,

the little brain bleeds. I think they

happened for his assistant, not for him.

We entered the territory of the sacred.

He loved it that I’d given him a book.

He remembered that I was self-

publishing. He said, “You must keep

working." I said, “I am. I will."

Being Wise Thirty-Three

                                                         Judy by Emma Tobin. 

Being Wise Thirty-Three September 19, 2021

Fog today, they say, but no rain.

High eighties, then rain and cooler.

I gave up driving, but that requires

patience again and again. I learn

to wait, to calm myself, trust my

helpers to come through, to get it

right, remind myself of all that is

going well. I can still read and 

write. I walk better. I’m teaching

and learning. I have enough money

and work I love. No serious complaints.

I’ll die one day, but not yet. I eat well,

sleep well, if not predictably. We edge

toward winter. I ordered fat wood.

The stove is clean and ready to fire up.

The vegetable garden is still producing

a few tomatoes, some okra. Not

everything is possible, but the important

things still are. I can speak, and

people listen.

Being Wise Thirty-Two

Judy by her sister Margie, August 2021 in computer chair

Being Wise Thirty-Two September 12, 2021

I keep falling asleep when I’m

trying to work, or not sleeping 

when I want to. So I keep midnight

hours and make more typos. It’s

my brain refusing me the competence

I’ve always had until now. My

helpers hold my hand tight, carry

heavy things for me. My students

still want me to teach them. I tell them

if I make a mistake, tell me. My mind

is less under my control. It has its

own agenda, its own time-table, its own

rebellions. The creeping green leaves 

curled around my computer, live, but

there are dead leaves, too, when they

lose the sun. We all need sun and

patience, not to mention persistence.

Keep reading even if I do fall asleep.

People love you, even your doctor,

who worries. She knows too much,

and it scares her. Too many youngsters

are sick with this Covid. But she worries

over an eighty-four-year old woman,

and my favorite physical therapist

praises me and eggs me on. She sees

through me and believes in my mastery

of walking. I practice “left foot, heel

first.”The cane comes down when

the left heel does. I still have a ways

to go. Hang on.

 

Being Wise Thirty-One

                        Portrait of Judy by Debbie Meyer Summer 2021. 

                Being Wise Thirty-One September 5, 2021

I will die. I don’t want to think about it. 

as it comes into my dreams and holds me

in its grip. Will I suffer or just feel weak

and lose my fight, my will to win? I can’t 

even remember my dream, just the way

it held me captive. I felt needy. I had to get

away, but I couldn’t. I’ve done what I

wanted to do, what I needed to do. One

more big book to get out. Can I manage

that? I’ll try. I’ll make bread today. I’ll

put the two halves of my last book back

together. I’ll teach my classes. These

may be the last, but I’ll give them my

best effort. I’ll keep writing poems.

They’re still coming. I won’t change

the way I am. The big world around

me is staggering. Too many people 

are without the food and shelter they

need. No money, no work, no hope in

their future. I have food and shelter,

and loving people to help me. I’ll do

all I can now. I’m not helpless yet.

Guest Post by Mindi Meltz: The Ever After Ever Trilogy

Here’s an invocation by the Wicked Witch in Mindi Meltz's After Ever After trilogy, a fairy tale of real relationship beyond the "happily ever after" union where most love stories end. Cinderella must overcome childhood self-denial to become queen and stand equal with her husband. Sleeping Beauty wakes to find her primeval land and matriarchal people destroyed—but her forgotten, hundred-year dream of love’s surrender holds the key to renewal. Belle yearns secretly for the Beast who inspired her passion before he turned back into a man, reflecting her own animal yearnings in a ghostly land. Snow White, raised in mythic wilderness by demigods of old, must recognize her own human self in that magic mirror, to finally take in and transform by the love of the huntsman. Discovering each other across mountain and dream, through ritual and longing, by war and friendship, these four familiar princesses evolve into real women across three epic tales. And that “wicked” Dark Faerie keeps luring them deeper into the forbidden, shadowy, feminine magic threading each of their clashing cultures—the lost rage, tenderness, sensuality, compassion, community and natural aliveness of the divine feminine—until they claim, not by battle but by intimacy, the true sovereign power to heal their broken worlds.

Book 2 was just released in July, Book 3 to be released early next year. Read more at www.mindimeltz.com.

****

Snow White hid in a mirror reflected. 

Cinderella danced at the ball undetected.

No one knows Sleeping Beauty’s dream.

Beauty loved Beast, but was she what she seemed?

They woke by kisses; they changed rags to riches; 

They defeated the curse of those dark faerie-witches.

But was it a curse? Did you ever ask her?

Did they really live happily all the while after?

Who were those princes, and how did it feel

to wake a hundred years later, your old life not real?

One fairy tale ended, but another began:

You married a beast, but must live with the man.

Who sent you blind, into love, to be “princess”? 

Who wrote love stories that ended in conquest?

You already know the tales told by men. 

I tell the tale that comes after the end.

I, witch of old, tell the story of she

whose lands are not symbols: they birth us, they breathe.Snow White, Beauty, Cinderella—

My curses were gifts, and at last I will tell you.

I call on the wolf, the sea, the winds.

I call on your memory, I call on the Grimms.

I call in the maidens, the mothers, the crones, 

the forest, the fields where you played all alone.

I call in jealousy, changes, new tears, 

the sacrifice and the long marriage years.

I call in wild-men, huntsmen, dwarves

slain by the heart and not by the sword.

I call in the waking, the crown and the blessing. 

I call in all of the things you were wishing

when you pricked your finger, or stole the rose, 

when you prayed at the grave your mother knows.

How will you be strong, and what does it mean 

to rule a world, to be princess—or queen?

Now you’re a wife, but you’re looking thin. 

So bite the apple. Let me back in.

— the Dark Faerie Queen

Mythical Novels and Animal Wisdom

www.mindimeltz.com

 

Being Wise Twenty-Nine

 My books, The Sands of Gower and Haw, in Kostroma, Russia Library

Being Wise Twenty-Nine   August 22, 2021

Leaves reaching, inside the window,

outside, too. Around me paintings,

mostly Russian, those loved people.

Then papers and books everywhere:

under my desk, in drawers of filing

cabinets, in boxes taking up half

the room, or more. All the words I’ve

written and will leave behind me.

These last books are my best, I think.

One at a time, I’ve published twenty-

eight books. In coming years, thirty-

one. Then I’ll rest my case. All the

human stories I’ve told, the battles

I’ve described; the endings I’ve

imagined and made real. All the

people who’ve helped me, and those

I’ve helped. What else is our human

life for? If we help each other on earth,

we’ll help each other in heaven. Who

we are won’t ever be lost. Even as our

light dims, it won’t disappear.

Being Wise Twenty-Eight

     Sunrise on New Year's day by Doc Ellen at Jordan Lake,                 Moncure, N.C.

Being Wise Twenty-Eight August 15, 2021

Most mornings I awake at dark

and wait for light. First light is

grey, barely visible. Then faint

tree shadows slowly taking on

substance because something

is glowing, off to one side. This

window looks west. If I turned

and looked east. I could see more–

a real flowering of light as the

clock moves past six. Even now

we head toward winter. They’ve

promised rain for a week. It began

last night, and Tim brought the

clothes in. Definitely trees now,

and sky behind them. A few

branches right outside this window,

still bearing green leaves. Maybe

the end of our 90-degree days. 

Maybe not. With our climate

changing, it’s hard to tell.  We’ve

had more than our usual rain

and high humidity. The sky begins

to turn blue. The rooster crows.

It’s not raining now. Light enters

from outside as well as from the

lamps. I see the single leaf shapes.

The rooster sounds happy, even

celebratory. The computer is dark,

because we had a storm last night,

and I turned it off early. Now it is

full light even though the sun is

still beyond the trees but waking

to keep me company and turning

sky pale blue with pink.