On the Way to Finding Ease
The title of today’s post is both an accurate description of my life’s journey and the title of my latest book of poetry—a solo compilation after three collaborations with my sisters. You can find all four books here. These next lines describe the book, and are also my life in a nutshell.
Childhood dis-ease stemming from emotional lack and the disease of alcoholism before I left my teens are defining aspects of my life. So is the writing I have been doing for five decades. The path of recovery I began in my mid-twenties is the path I continue on today. Ongoing recovery and transformation are revealed through daily efforts, with writing being a key practice. Daily work for a daily disease. It is the best work that I do, impacting all realms of wellness. Though not a constant state, ease is attainable and sustainable. The poems within this book traverse dis-ease and disease, and then weave healing and presence into a tapestry that has the beautiful thread of ease bringing it together.
Writing has been such a blessing and transformative practice in my life. Saving me, then paving the way for me to grow into my healthier self. I continue to write and grow. I started several iterations of this book over the last fifteen years. It finally fell into place with a spark from this quote that showed up in my email on my 60th birthday, inspiring the poem that follows:
”It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.” -Mary Oliver-
Serious Work
There are sixty seconds
in a minute,
sixty minutes in an hour,
and now there have been
sixty years in my life.
Some years are blurred,
memories captured in
photos and journals now.
Some seconds and minutes
become timeless,
etched deeply in my soul
and on my heart.
Raw pain and loss,
abundant joy and peace,
felt in brief moments,
transformed me and
danced with each other.
The serious work lies in
which moments I choose
to let define me, guide me,
and which dance carries me.
Serious work awaits me
on this fresh day,
vibrant with life.
I think serious work is underrated today. The easy way out is what we are pitched, and what we wish were possible in our busy lives. But the easy way for me was to drink at my pain. It could have killed me and almost did on some nights. I will take the serious work. It opens the path and lights the way to the peace and ease that, even in small doses, can bring clarity and joy to the minutes and hours that make up my days and years. I want to dance, vibrantly.
Join me on the way to finding ease. My little book of poetry can guide us both. Here is the cover, the blue backdrop is from a picture captured on a beautiful day spent with friends last October. Friends who knew me in my drinking days. Friends who know me today. Onward!
