When the Music

This is the poem I wrote for my daughter on her wedding day. You have to know Kate and Matt to appreciate it but I wanted to share it with all.

When the Music

For Kate and Matt 

on their wedding day

July 6, 2013

The chords of hopeful love and harmony

stretched from east coast to west

through fashion and history

unbroken by time or space 

when the music was a silent prayer

Dissonance and alternate soundscapes

pulled to meet somewhere in the desert

near fountains and night lights

unexpected fusion and gold dust  

when the music was unrehearsed and new

An intermezzo of sweet communion

an offbeat meeting of body and soul

and all the world stopped

the fifteen year wait was over 

when the music was a precious thing

Songs they had never sung

they now sang for each other

rhythmic, soul-wise, tattooed on their hearts

in the velvet underground that only two share 

when the music was suspended rock and roll

Today God is in their redemption song

now it is sealed, it is beautiful

let them sing and dance in these song-gifts

with a melody only they can hear

and the music goes on forever.....

Diane Vogel Ferri

Black Dress

The black dress had a singular sound and feel,
the Audrey Hepburn dress, the clerk said, and it was sold.

A wide décolleté draped with a wavy collar framed my cleavage.
It wrapped around my ribcage like a baby's swaddling

pulled me in tight and feminine, the swishing skirt flared
to my calves with the urgency to twirl.

The rhinestones on the cuffs and swinging from my earlobes
matched the ones on my shoes and around my neck.

I opened my handbag to check on the two cotton handkerchiefs
I had been given, then I momentarily put my carefully made-up face

in my hands, but caught the tears before they marred my visage.
I moved down the aisle in a happy trance and sat down

to watch my son begin the life I had always dreamed for him.

Our Mexico Vacation

Last week I was fortunate to spend my days on the beach in Mexico. My husband and I have had two close family deaths in the past 6 months and we used the week to just BE together - in peaceful respite. Somehow the beauty of the Caribbean Sea, the sound of the relentless waves and the opportunity to leave the world behind for a few days was healing. I did not see a computer screen for 6 days and did not miss it at all, but I am happy to share a few photos from our week.

This was the view from our room.



I loved exploring the tidepools and finding all kinds of creatures - thousands of sea snails clustered together in their colonies.



The water is perfectly clear and full of lovely (and friendly) iridescent blue/silver fish as well as some yellow and black striped ones that would circle around me, presumably looking for food.


We arose early on our last day to watch the sun rise on the Caribbean Sea.

PS - I am unsure about the spelling of Carribean - Caribbean. The dictionary has the latter, but it was spelled with two R's in this morning's paper. I'm a spelling nut.

My Grief Observed

I may not be able to write of anything but the grief process for awhile. I hope you don't mind and will bear with me. I hope you may be enlightened in some way. It turns out that grief is an all-consuming experience. One may return to work and smile, go to the grocery store and turn on the television again - but nothing much seems to matter. Life has been put in a stark and revealing perspective.

It has been a profound learning experience. I now know that when a friend loses a parent or sibling they are not all right just because they seem all right. After the funeral home visitation, the cards, the hugs, the funeral itself - there is a whole new life to consider. Something that may have been a singular part of you for all your life or for decades is a void now. You still need to talk, to relive the experience in order to accept it. You still need hugs.

I will now pay more attention to friends in the midst of this experience. I will not stop calling or visiting or bringing food when the funeral is over. I will continue to lift them up in sincere prayer because I have experienced the incomprehensible and indescribable sensation of being prayed for. It does not dry the tears. It does not take away the pain. But it gives an undergirding of hope and strength when you thought you were weak.

Those are my thoughts today. The only other thing on my mind seems to be all the people I would like to thank for their kindness. I will get to that soon. Otherwise, as I said, nothing else seems to matter much right now except loving my husband, who has lost more than anyone ever should.

Another Reason to Like Betty White

"I don't care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time - and there are gay relationships that are more solid than heterosexual ones - I think it's fine if they want to get married. I don't know how people can get so anti-something. Mind your own business, take care of your affairs, and don't worry about other people so much."

Valentine

When I think of you, my Valentine,
I think of a safe place to lie each night

in a room of contentment
feeling the heat radiating from you.

And what is love but a safe place
to exist in a frightening world?

I could pull my heart out and offer it to the universe,
but it would be you, my Valentine,

who would take it and silently protect it
in your hands forever.

The Power of Music and Lyrics

I have sung in choirs and choruses, at weddings and as a church soloist all my life. I've been transported to heaven singing Brahm's German Requiem. I've been honored to sing at weddings of people I don't know. All my life I've had the privilege of choosing songs that were meaningful to me to share with a congregation. But I don't listen to these songs in my car, walking with my ipod, or at home. I exclusively listen to music for lyrics that evoke a certain emotion in me. It's a habit I've had for almost twenty years since a single CD changed me. It was a time when I was experiencing every negative emotion humanly possible, and sometimes no emotion at all. Although it was a tumultuous and frightening time, it also gave me a rush of something new, something swiftly approaching, a nascent hope and a release from the monotony of a former life. Sometimes I listen to those songs just to experience that rush again. Or the one song that still makes me flinch.

There were two CDs that connected to my very soul. One was Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes. With piano sounds and lyrics I'd never heard before, it gave me permission to be angry (which I desperately needed), to scream, to make me feel alive again. I believe I started writing poetry because her lyrics were poetry to me. On the way home from divorce court I loudly sang along with the song "Little Earthquakes" - give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.
The song "Crucify" asked - why do we crucify ourselves everyday? I crucify myself and nothing I do is good enough for you.
"Tear in Your Hand" said - you don't know the power you have with that tear in your hand.
She sang to me - she's been everybody else's girl, maybe one day she'll be her own.
And - sometimes I hear my voice and it's been HERE - silent all these years.
And - these precious things - let them bleed, let them wash away....

Then, the underrated Kenny Loggins made a CD called Leap of Faith, and I thought he was in my brain. It seemed he was feeling the same things I was:
And if I have to make up my mind, maybe now is the time to decide. Every minute makes it harder on me. Why must it be now or never?

Then in "Leap of Faith" he sang - Once in a life you can find the time to see. Then you get to take it down, turn around, temporary sanity. And then the mountain disappears without a trace - and all it took was a sudden leap of faith.

He sang to his daughter in "The Real Thing" - I did it for you and the boys, because love should teach you joy, and not the imitation that your mama and daddy tried to show you. I did it for you and for me and because I still believe there's only one thing you can never give up on and that's the real thing you need in love.


And I played that song for people to try to explain why my life had fallen apart. At the end of that song he sings:
Everybody's got a boat upon the ocean, but not everybody's sailing out to sea. Is there someone there for me? I'm ready to believe...

AND SO - the last song of that album is called "Too Early for the Sun." It was a few years before I could relate to that one:
You're too early for the stars, too early for the wind
too early for my heart to open up again
but when I see you I just laugh, and I believe
I'm right where I'm supposed to be.
I have never known a life like this except in my dreams
one kiss and I arose anew, now I am alive
I have survived.

And so - after seasons of pain and anger, healing and forgiveness - this was our first dance in my living room. This was our first dance as husband and wife. This is our dance every July 6th in our living room. The album Leap of Faith came full circle in my life - how appropriate.

These songs, these lyrics had a powerful effect on me. Some of them changed me, grew me, and healed me. I will always be grateful that these artists sang their truths because they made me understand my own truth. Music still does that for me.

Where It Lived

It turns out
we've had it all wrong:
searching for our cravings
in what was not there,

looking for truth
in our small entitlements
like recalcitrant children
anchored in the past,

clinging to a hungry vision
with our spirits on a stretcher
we have casually paged off
the days like a magazine

shredding the beautiful
admiring the awful.

But now we know:
in every silent day,
every glance not averted,
in every shuddering embrace,

in the poverty of sleepless nights
and red-eyed mornings
this is where the love lived
stayed, thrived, survived.

The Real Thing

On my walk yesterday, my ipod on shuffle, the song "The Real Thing" by Kenny Loggins came on. It's a song from his album "Leap of Faith" from 1991. It was his divorce/starting life over album and it was a lifeline for me. I still cry at "The Real Thing".

I did it for you and the boys
because love should teach you joy
and not the imitation
that your mama and daddy tried to show you
I did it for you and for me
and because I still believe
there is one thing you can never
give up and never compromise on
and it's the real thing
you need in love.

I still cry for my children's broken home. But both of my children chose to rise above all that went wrong. They each chose the high road of forgiveness and love, not anger and resentment. For this, I will always admire them.

Now my son is engaged and I see my dream for him coming true. I believe with all my hear that my kids will do it right because I have seen them learn from their parents' mistakes.

The end of "The Real Thing" says:

Everybody's got a boat out on the ocean
but not everybody's sailing out to sea
and is there someone there for me?
I'm ready to believe.

I chose to believe and there was somebody out there for me - and now I've got The Real Thing.

The Pile (A Ferri Tale)

With great optimism and hope the couple decided to combine their former lives into one new life and one house. The man and the woman packed up everything they had from their old loves and moved it into the new compromise house. Strangely, they both brought many boxes of manure with them, and every time one was brought into the new house is was promptly dumped in the center of the home - that area you must move through every day in living there.

After a short time the family noticed a putrid odor hanging in the air. It was difficult to have fun with the smell permeating every room of the house. They spent a lot of money on air fresheners, but nothing seemed to work. The children got angry and the adults were just annoyed. They really wanted to hang on to everything they brought with them.

Occasionally a discussion lasting through the night would cause one of them to take up a shovel, fill a box, and put it out in the trash. But most of the time everyone just stepped over the pile, getting some of it on their shoes and tracking it out of the house and into the car, leaving bits of it everywhere they went. Family and friends would often sniff the air and wonder what the foul smell was, but they were too polite to say anything.

On a particularly volatile night she fell smack into the pile, her tears wetting the dried up chunks, and the pieces that had stopped stinking started to smell again. The man usually avoided the pile altogether even when she pointed it out to him. This made her very angry.

She yelled, "I'm sick of your shit!"
He said, "It's mine and I'm keeping it."

As the years passed the pile diminished slightly. Sometimes they noticed the reduction of manure and were pleased, but sometimes old manure they thought they had dispossed of reappeared, and they were discouraged. It didn't smell quite as bad, but the stench was always present. They kind of got used to it.

After many years they saw something start to peek out from the pile. It looked clean and bright, but they were afraid to uncover it. The scent of something new hung in the air and sometimes even overpowered the bad smell. They looked at each other and smiled. What could it be? What could have lasted all these years under all that crap?

Finally, one day it surfaced. It smelled sweet and was well-preserved. It glowed from its place in the center of the pile. Apparently it had been there all the time, but neither of them had had the courage to dig down and uncover it. The dried up pieces of manure were easy to toss out and the sweet spot was revealed. It wasn't really a surprise. It was what they had started out with - a beautiful, unbreakable box of trust, respect, admiration - and true love. Then they remembered. They left the box in the central place where it could not be ignored. If it began to grow dim, or new manure rested on top of it, they swept it off, took out the trash, or flushed it down the toilet where it had always belonged anyway.

And the man and the woman never forgot how long it had taken them to uncover something beautiful that had been there all the time - and they knew it always would be.
The End.

An Anniversary

We are celebrating our 13th anniversary today. It has been quite an adventure in marital extremes. I am more than grateful that we both chose to stick it out. It's getting better all the time. Happy Anniversary, Babe.

Valentine from the Past

This is a mushy Valentine poem I wrote to my beloved a long time ago but I feel the same way now:

I only knew a Valentine
six years ago
when you became mine

grace revealed
in a burning love
we go in passionate waves

where
were you before
when I thought I knew of love?

now
your arms around me
are life-giving and we have created
memories in the cradle of our united life

even
when you are unaware
my bond and gratitude
are ever-present

then
I asked you to stay
and share the journey with me

now
I feel the same
only more

To Have Love

In the midst of your hands on me
peace arrives

the music stops and a nothingness
fills the void, a quietude

your whisperings
my clutching

where am I?
when did you come

to bring all thesse
senses to life

and all this gratitude
coagulates in my brain

for what we have in this moment
and then a sudden sadness

for someone who does not have
what we have

does not know
what we know

has never been loved
as we have loved.

The House on Oakmont Drive

Maybe each of us drives by the house on Oakmont Drive occasionally. The house where my children were raised. The house where I was raised from the dead. But this time as I slowed the car down to look, my daughter next to me, there was a public auction sign. It was empty. I backed the car up and pulled into the driveway like I had hundreds of times over those eleven years. We looked at each other like two kids in a candy shop and decided to go look.

The spacious welcoming front porch seemed tilted even farther than I remembered as we climbed the uneven stairs. We peeked in the windows and saw the living room, dining room and what we called the music room adjacent to each other. All the walls and woodwork were white. The floors uniformly covered in beige carpet.

But in that moment in time I saw something different. I saw country blue woodwork and matching drapes. I saw flowered couches and scratched wooden floors that were so crooked you could drop a marble and watch it roll through the rooms. I saw every hand-cut Christmas tree in the corner. I heard children's voices and someone playing the old upright black piano. I saw two long-gone dogs at my feet. There were dozens of friends and family crowded in at Thanksgiving and New Year's Day around my grandparents' round wooded table.

I saw every knick-knack, rug, painting, and the wallpaper my mom and I had carefully hung in the dining room. My dishes were still in the leaded glass cabinets with a blue cushion I made on the window seat between them. The canary cage hung in the back corner and Oliver was singing his heart out. The French doors separating that room from the dining room were the ones I spent days stripping multiple layers of paint off the glass. My daughter and I stared in surreal wonder. Even with all that missing it was still so very familiar. It was home.

We walked around to the side yard and remembered mean old Mrs. Skinner yelling at the kids, and the dog getting maced by the mailman the day we moved in. In the tiny backyard there was an empty spot where the wooden swingset had been, built for the kids by their dad. My glorious lilacs were gone. The dogwood tree we planted as a memorial for our dog was gone. There were people in the house next door, but not my dear friend Jeanne, whose funeral I had attended a mere two months ago.

The basement windows were now opaque, but in my mind I could see the dim, dank room that held my son's first drum set, and the jacks we'd installed to hold up the sagging floor above. We couldn't climb the stairs inside but I could still see her pink bedroom walls, his blue bedroom walls. I could see all my books on the hand-built shelves that lined the hallway. I could hear myself crying in the extra room behind my bedroom or in the clawfoot bathtub with the water running, trying to cover the sobs.

I could hear children running through the house laughing from the games we'd play on family night. Then I saw their faces the day we sat in that living room and told them their lives were about to change forever.

As we got back in the car I could see my son and daughter on every first day of school on that front porch - new clothes and shoes, new backpacks and smiles, and I wanted it back. Oh, how I wanted it back. There were some days in that house that I would do anything to re-do or to erase from my memory. There are hundreds of days I would love to relive.

Then there was the day when I opened that same front door and saw a certain man - and I was looking at my future.

The Dichotomy of a Day

My husband may never know how much it means to me that he always takes a day off for us to celebrate our anniversary. We've gotten into the habit of spending a day riding our bikes along a beautiful wooded towpath trail that follows the remnants of the old Erie Canal. Yesterday we rode 7 miles one way, had lunch in a little town and rode the 7 miles back. The only thing hurting at the end of the day was the result of inadequate bike seats - ouch! It's quite an historic area and there are markers to teach you about the building of the canal. The photo is of one of the remnants.

The dichotomy of the day was because after we came home from such a pleasant time together, we showered and dressed and visited another funeral home. My friend Jeanne lost her 6 year battle with cancer. She left behind two teenage children and her husband, Jay. We became friends in junior high and then, in the 80's she moved next door to me. I'll never forget walking over to meet the new neighbor with a plate of brownies and Jeanne opening the door! Jeanne loved butterflies and the room where we said goodbye to her was filled with them - in the flower arrangements and decorating the collages of photographs of her life. Looking at the photos I realized that I couldn't even imagine what Jeanne looked like without a smile on her face. She loved her God and I have no doubt that Jeanne has left her cocoon and is now a beautiful butterfly.

Our Anniversary

It's our 12th anniversary.

Here's poem I wrote to my beloved a long, long time ago.

It's pretty lame in it's execution, but its truth remains:

My Unpoem

Thousands of words have bled through my hand

in healing expressions of painful years.

Hours spent seeking precisely the phrase

to vanquish the need in my heart.

In agony on countless nights

the pen would wildly run across my page

until finally I could lay it down in peace.

Now I plead with my brain

for some remnant of language

to satisfy the omnipresent craving

that saturates my heart and mind.

The minute by minute need

is to express fully in words
the experience of you in my life.

My mind is a vacuous space in my head

yet my heart is completely flooded

with a deluge of newfound joy.

And I must accept the unacceptable truth

that there is simply no syntax of words

good enough to describe you.

Wife

(This is not me - it's just a poem I wrote a long time ago. See June 18 post.)

Dusting pain off a silent surface,
sweeping boredom out of the door,
sleeping when she should be waking,
picking, picking crumbs up off the floor.

Fluffing his pillow to lie closer to hers,
setting, then resetting the table,
straightning piles of paperbacks to escape
the dreams that became a child's fable.

Doing a half a load of his laundry,
crying when the damn toast is burnt,
seeking shelter in her pretty bottle,
mopping a clean floor as it it weren't.

Dancing alone across the shiny wood,
falling, shattering a hopeless bone,
stitching and binding to make it all right,
wondering why she's dancing alone.

Sprucing up the agony of years
with a brand new yellow curtain,
calling him in her screaming silent voice
but no one can hear her, she's certain.

Brushing the dog, someone to talk to,
another phone call to say he'll be late,
dinner's on the table, teddy's on the rug,
she'll be sleeping alone or she'll wait.

Ashes of love sprinkled at her feet,
brush them off before anyone can see.
The house is perfect, the day is done,
maybe one day she'll set herself free.

Love

Words from The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck:

Genuine love not only respects the individuality of the other but actually seeks to cultivate it, even at the risk of separation or loss. The ultimate goal of life remains the spiritual growth of the individual, the solitary journey to peaks that can only be climbed alone. Significant journeys cannot be accomplished without the nurture provided by a successful marriage or a successful society. Marriage and society exist for the basic purpose of nurturing such individual journeys.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but not eat from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let

each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute

are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Khalil Gibran

Fractions of Life

Sometimes it seems like it is not getting any easier - the (mental) institution of marriage, that is. We have absolutely nothing in common. We do not enjoy or find meaning in any of the same things. Our sole commonality is the desire to be together - so we keep talking and planning and praying and dreaming.

He is the numerator and I am the denominator and we mean something completely different when you put us together. He witnesses my inner madwoman and loves me still.

He doesn't hear the lyrics of a song, but my brain immediately zeros in on the words.

On the way home today the CD played a song with the simple refrain -

You, you have been loved by someone good.

That, I know for sure.
That, I have never doubted.
That, is more than anyone should ask for in this lifetime and more than I deserve.

Second Chances (Over and over again)

After arriving home from work I flipped on the TV and saw Amy Grant and Vince Gill were on Oprah. Their blended family sat in the audience as they spoke of finding true love midway through life. They sang love songs to each other. Always having been a fan and admirer of Amy, and recently reading her book, I sat there completely immersed in their story, thinking how amazing it is that God gives us second chances, that He can heal what was once broken, that He can create love where there was a void.

I noticed the tranquility on their faces and the maturity in their voices as they spoke of unexpected challenges and changes. Amy said that when she first came into Vince's family she felt like she had borrowed someone's car keys, took their car for a ride and brought it back wrecked - I couldn't have expressed it better in a dozen of my poems.

Anyway - I'm sitting there thinking how wonderful it all was - how lucky they were - and then through my tears I realized - that was me - that was my life too.