Singing the same tune..

Day 5 of being sick. Not up to writing stories for the blog, been reading other blogs and finished reading a book. I've been grieving pretty hard this past week, maybe it's because I'm ill and feel weak. I read a couple of pages of one of Pam's journals yesterday, after mum mentioned that she wouldn't mind taking a look at them. I didn't advise it. It was painful to read as usual, tears left me exhausted but then I felt a sense of calm after the storm. Later in the evening I read the same pages to Ron, he was reassuring saying that Pam's writing about her difficulties with me was positive. That she was individuating. I wonder if you could describe her death as individuating?

Ron said she sounds so like me. We were very similar women. Often I would call her or she me and we'd both been thinking the same thing or had bought the same clothes or had the same kind of dream. Our sister Angie says we had a special bond because we were so alike.  It feels like part of me has died. I'm glad I've got her journals even though they are so upsetting to read. I said maybe I shouldn't be reading them and Ron replied maybe you are meant to. Maybe I am. Maybe in time they can be my guide? To remind me of the path that we were on together. And perhaps I can let it keep me on track even though I'm on that path alone now.

These lines from Rumi seem appropriate...

Friend, I've shrunk to a hair trying to say your story.

Would you tell mine?

I've made up so many love stories.

Now I feel fictional.

Tell me!

The truth is, you are speaking, not me.

I am Sinai, and you are Moses walking there.

This poetry is an echo of what you say.

Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'

'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.

A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'

William Butler Yeats.

Wigwam Pam

I wrote this poem after Pam came to Santa Fe to spend Christmas with me in 2003.  

I suppose it still applies Pam...wherever you are my love...

Wigwam Pam
Telephone ma'am
Your heart in a clam
You had the same plan

Wigwam Pam
You also ran
As fast as you can
From the same man

La la la la pretty girl la
Do you know where you are?
Did you travel really far?
La la la la pretty girl lee
Did you set yourself free?
Did you find your own tree?

Wigwam Pam
Your Uncle Sam
Says don't give a damn
Live if you can

Do it!!!

            Start a huge, foolish project,
                         like Noah.

         It makes absolutely no difference
              what people think of you.

                            Rumi

This explains perfectly why I do this...

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, 

even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection,

even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest

with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with the breath of 

your own spirit.

And to know that all the blessed dead

are standing about you and watching.

The Prophet by Kahil Gibran.