if you stay too long in the third world

The following poem was given to me by my beautiful adoptive and adopted Australian mother, Connie. Sitting outside in the cool breeze on her back patio, she read this poem out loud to me somehow inferring that I would understand. Understand it, I did and appreciate it, I do. Thank you, Connie, for being being so poetically sound and always having just the right words!

if you stay too long in the third world

you learn

to hawk and spit like an old woman

you become

unfit for dinner parties

in the lands of the well fed

having dropped out of yoru original country

into this space from which

the coast with its oceans and gardens

the party on the terrace

the splash of green water over the bow of the yacht

are images projected on a screen

whoe unreality you resent

the other side of the coin whose gain

is the loss you see all around

if you stay too long in the third world

death becomes a fact of life    the old

die quickly       the young

can't count on being old       this termite death

hollows out the roots of endeavour

as children leave toys you abandon

your previous explantations

if you stay too long in the third world

it will fill the space in your psyche

with a differnt discourse

you will begin to recongise

the unfamiliar in the unfamiliar

the outline of a landscape

in a pattern of dots

the faces of relations in the tragice and violent

repitions of a song        the patterns of daily living

in the holy steps of a dance

if you stay too long in the third world

you will become

accustomed to silence and observation

leading to understanding

to abundance and malnutrition

immutably hand in hand

when that eager and rational voice

whose creature you are

whose instrument you had vounteered to become

grates like the radio on a bad day

you switch it off

if you stay too long in the third world

you will be unable to leave

-Lee Catalidi, Women who live on the Ground

"31 by 31"

The following is a by-product of my reflection time on New Years Day. Although a month has passed and potentially this could be considered a bit overdue, I still felt the urge to post it given the timeless quality it embodies.

To explain: I was challenged by a special friend this year to re-live 2009 in a very concentrated fashion, focusing on the people, places, events, moments, books, and movies that made 2009 what it was. To simply “bear witness” to the year as it was for me. It was a huge mental push for me to think back through everything, reliving details of so many memories, trips overseas, highlights and lowlights, as well as having the benefit of seeing now with 20/20 vision. It took me all of 3 days to get my thoughts down in the varying formats that I chose.

Below you will find one of the many outcomes from these few days. I share this only because none of my biggest life lessons came easily. Many, if not all, came from years of varying reinforcements, a keen sense of awareness while out in the world and for some, many tears and much pain. I guess this is the process of growing up. I certainly don’t feel as if I have it all figured out, these are just the few things I know for sure. I have aptly named it “31 in 31”. Potentially what I’ve learned will strike a chord with some of you.

( I, no doubt, have many more lessons to go. )

1. True wisdom seems to be the byproduct of authentic life experiences. This is why I seek as many real world experiences as possible.


2. Money is nice, but only makes life easier when it is mine free and clear.


3. My attitude changes my reality.


4. I am capable of extraordinary things.


5. People deserve a second chance, but not a third.


6. My health dictates a large majority of my life.


7. Time heals all wounds…regardless of how I might feel at any singular moment.


8. The time value of money is the single greatest secret I have been privy to.


9. My actions now create memories I will reminisce on and talk about for the rest of my years.


10. If I never act on my desires, I will never truly know for sure what “could have been”.


11. I must, I must: Trust the process.


12. Hindsight is nearly always 20/20


13. Peace of mind is one key. Balance is the other.


14. No matter how hard I try, I cannot tell my heart who to love. Nor can I make someone love me.


15. No one is responsible for me, except me.


16. Nothing is more satisfying than regular bowel movements.


17. It’s not the big things in life, it’s all the little ones that count.


18. Time has absolutely no mercy as it marches on.


19. Not everyone has a 6th sense, but those who do have a really strong one.


20. I officially have my own drum and my own beat. And that’s OK.


21. Debt is the biggest weight in the world.


22. I am a culmination of many lives and many lessons learned by many souls.


23. Understanding the truth sets me free.


24. We as humans are so much more alike than different.


25. I am incredibly lucky to have the family and home life that I have.


26. I am what I eat.


27. If it’s right, it’s obviously right. If not, it’s obviously wrong.


28. A dog’s love and adoration is pretty much priceless.


29. True friends – the ones w/ no agenda, always reliable, and in every way edifying – are extremely hard to come by. These are the ones that matter.


30. When there is a will there is always a way.


31. Life will speak to me if I just listen.

A couple of years ago, I went for a long weekend to Bainbridge Island, WA to stay with some family of the guy I was dating at the time. They were absolutely the coolest couple -- teaching me all about how exquisite orange juice in champagne glasses is during a morning shower, plus how to live more sustainably and appreciate rice milk! We had the best weekend with them, but more than anything I remember this poem. The house they lived in had previously been built by a couple who had the last line of this poem etched into their mantle. They liked it so much, they decided to keep it in the house and had a framed copy of this poem for everyone to see. I thought it was really great. Birches by Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground, Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm, I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping >From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Me Likey

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Thanks to Ethan for bringing this poem to my attention.

ummm...Mom?

"May I ask you a personal question?" he says.
"You can ask."
"You've never been married?"
"That's right. Does that shock you?"
"It surprises me. Not many heterosexual women who look like you make it to forty without getting married at least once."
"Is that a nice way of asking what's wrong with me?"
Kaiser laughs. "It's a nice way of being nosy."
"You'd think I'd be a prize catch, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, I would."
"A lot of guys think that. From a distance."
"What's wrong with up close?"
"I'm not like most women."
"How so?"
"Well, it goes like this. I meet a guy. Good-looking, successful, independent. Doctor, journalist, investment banker, A-list actor. Whatever. He can't wait to go out with me. I'm a not-so-ugly woman in what a lot of people see as a glamour job. The first few dates, he shows me off to his friends. We like each other. We get intimate. Then, in a week or a month, I get a new assignment. Afghanistan. Brazil. Bosnia. Egypt. And not a fly-in-and-out Dan Rather junket. A month on the ground schlepping cameras. Maybe this particular guys is making international partner the next week and wants me at his celebration party. Maybe the Oscars are the next week. But I take the assignment, I won't even discuss turning it down. And by the time I get back, he's decided maybe the relationship isn't working out after all."
"Why do you think that is?"
"Because most guys have the one-up gene."
"The what?"
"The one-up gene. The have to be in the superior position. They love the idea of being with me. But the reality is far from what they envision. Some don't like that I make more money than they do. The ones who make more money than I do don't like it when their friends act like my job is more important than theirs. Some can't take the fact that I have a higher priority than them in my life. I don't mean to complain about it. I just want you to understand." ....

Mom is reading Dead Sleep by Greg Iles right now. She left me a note on the counter this morning that said "Read page 160. Remind you of anyone?" Umm...no. I mean, Yes. I mean..I don't know.

Prose at its finest.

"Emerson gave us last Monday evening the most brilliant lecture I ever listened to from any mortal. It was on the identity of the laws of the mind with the laws of nature. He proved conclusively that man is only a higher kind of corn, that he is a squirrel gone up into first class, that he is a liberated oyster fully educated, that he is a spiritualized pumpkin, a thinking squash, a graduated sunflower, and inspired turnip. Such imagery, such wit, such quaint things said in a tone of solemn and sublime! I have the most profound respect henceforth for every melon-vine as my ancestor. I look upon every turtle as of kin. Tonight he lectures again. I fear I may have lost it."