In the Beginning there was the Night I Nearly Died

It started on December 21, 2019, when I woke up lying on the couch in my living room and took note of a glorious sunrise. Something in that sunrise thumped me on the head as I took a photo.

I had been spending my days sitting on a recliner in the corner of my living room doing mostly nothing.

I had come close to death in the previous October and all I knew was... everyone else was so happy I was back home and healthy but truth be told, I was in a horrible space mentally.

I remembered how fun it was to write haiku – very descriptive, of sunrise and then post on facebook.

My friend Laurie lived across town from me. She would tell me how much she loved reading my haiku, how she would look forward to reading the in the morning before she left her house and then going out her door and seeing what I had just written.

It was like our daily personal celebration.

I sat in my recliner and told myself something had to change.

I had no one to give me an inspirational talk to myself except for myself. The preceding years I had become more isolated from friends after a rift with numerous friends after I took a stand for something I believed in strongly. I didn't regret the stand, I definitely regretted some of  my behavior before, during and after that time.

This time, after this sunrise,  I wanted to take that sort of energy and intention and create, differently.

I decided to do a trial run of morning haiku or micropoems and photos and see how I felt after a few days later.

Within a week  I decided I wanted to aim to write haiku all three-hundred-sixty-six days of 2020. I wanted to write haiku in the morning – before noon in whatever time zone I was in – and I wanted to post them on my personal facebook page. Since I was close to the end of 2019 I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to span three different calendar years?" so I decided to cross over into 2o21.

In total that would be 377 haiku across four seasons with eleven bonus days of winter.

Those were my rules.

I had no expectations beyond posting daily, as best as I could.

I knew I risked failing or worst yet embarrassing myself or even worse, being boring, but somehow I created magic that turned into tree hugging and daily love notes to my next big collaborative project, #377podcasts which is where we are now.

Turns out what I wrote back in 2020 has definitely has had firework tendrils, unexpected when I wrote: "Somehow something as simple as writing seventeen syllables daily feels a lot more significant, a lot more special and I’m definitely a lot more likely to complete it, one celebration at a time."

With this project, I will have gone through the same amount of time as my preschool years or my college years, or the years I was married before I had a surviving baby or the years between almost dying and learning not to let go, but to choose to live and love and grow with my whole heart without worrying about results. PS As we begin I am still inching towards that last part.

 

Good Morning, Love (June, 2022)

Good Morning, Love!
June 22, 2022
Shafter, CA

These days I’m doing a lot of different things while we’re working through toward greater healing. I’m the go between, cart coordinator, meal prep, laundress, chauffeur, health maven and chief negotiator.

I’m not actively teaching classes or leading groups or one-on-one client sessions because of the necessary flexibility that comes with caregiving.

Lately I’ve been using research techniques I learned in Mr. Caruso’s social studies class in 5th grade where I wrote my first lengthy paper. Thirty-five hand written pages with thirty-seven carefully collected and documented sources. My future self knew I would one day live in the land of Cesar Chavez, Larry Itliong, Dolores Huerta and countless others as that paper was about the plight of migrant workers.

This research work I am doing will fill in gaps and store up strengths on the projects that have felt “on hold” while I’ve been back in Bakersfield.

I’m understanding it isn’t a detour as much as a slightly different variation of my personal learning lab. Don’t even ask about a man I met today named Joey. It’s almost too much for my emotional storytelling of the day.

Waking up to thunder and lightning was incredible!

What did you wake up to today?

Tree Hug

On a road trip across country, I decided to stop at Central Little Rock High School to hug a tree on campus. I also made a video - which is below. One of the notes I made on my documentation was "Sometimes hugging a tree is a prayer."

Amen and Amen.

In the video (I can't embed it here but you may see it on facebook) I also talk about making beauty - and how making beauty can change the planet. 

If I hadn't had the thought, "I am going to hug a tree at that high school, in Little Rock!" I might have driven right past for so many reasons: there is never enough time, there is always something more important - but creating this body of work - consistently - helped me rise up to a completely different and higher understanding.

The genesis of all of these projects was simply to feel better. That's it. I wanted to connect more deeply with my passions so that depression wouldn't win.

The good news is depression did not win, I'm still moving forward, with love, (some numeral)/377 at a time.

 

 

 

 

Haiku 347/377

ship wreck stuck in time

on a deserted island

where is the captain?

 

- - - - - 

My first photo of a shopping cart was in 2013.

 

Each one tells a story. This one was on a center island on Ming Avenue near New Stine in Bakersfield. I almost passed it by on the way to “something better” but after I saw a second abandoned shopping cart I knew I had to go back and honor the unheard storyteller who left his or her home behind.

 

When I looked at the photos and realized none of them showed the fact this cart was on a median, in the middle of a busy street, distinctively on an island.... this haiku fell onto the “page” here on my phone in an instant.

 

I’m reminded in the dead poet’s society where the boys climb on their desks and say, one by one and some silently “oh captain, my captain” as their beloved teacher leaves - meant to be in shame and wasn’t.

 

Your task today if you choose to take it is when you come upon someone you haven’t taken the time to see lately, pause and see them, wholly and holy.

 

Tree Hug 1 of 377 and Beyond

There is no purer love.

We had a great time today... including the mulberry whispers to not be afraid when my neighbor pulled up as I was about to speak to the camera... I’m taking these photos in different ways. This one was taken via video screen shot.

I even capture me saying “shhhh!” to the camera and running behind the tree. My neighbor thinks I’m really odd, already so what does any of this matter?!

“We’re all community” the mulberry reminded me. All the people I love and those I don’t care for, we’re all community.”

She’s so much smarter than me. She thanked me for being a loving caretaker.

I shed a few tears. And a few laughs.

PS you know a hug or kiss is deep when the glasses come off! 

This will be a fantastic adventure, that’s for sure.

Haiku 1/377

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solstice sunrise blooms
Intention laces colors
Purple winks through trees

§  §  §

Humble, detached beginnings. Primary intention? To experiment with feeling better than near death - and to connect intentionally using creativity sprinkled with a bit of my personal gifts and talents.