Take Your Seat

Close your eyes

Or cast them down

Four to six feet

On the ground

In front of you

Blind to thought

Notice without judgment

Return to the breath

Return to the breath

Return to the breath

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Sabbath

The day is spent

Reading

At rest and

In prayer

There was but one 

Vigorous thing here

Flowers

From my mother's garden

I brought them with me 

Yesterday

They drank the water from the vase and 

Spent themselves

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

  

An Coire Ansic

The basil in my garden 

Replenishes miraculously like

The cauldron of the Dagda

This afternoon I clipped a

Giant handful and

Looked back and

Looked at the basil in my hand and

Wondered how it was possible

I remember thinking the same thing when later

I ate the pesto and pasta and shrimp and

Wondered how it is possible that

Basil and pine nuts and parmesan and olive oil can

Transform into

Green magic

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

  

Treasure

Valentine's Day. 2014. Almost a year after Mom's cancer surgery. The doctor had told her that if she was clear for a year, she would be cured and the likelihood of metastatic disease was slim to none. So far. So good. 

She wanted to celebrate.

She called me and said, "How about I get tickets to Rusalka at the Met and we spend Valentines Day in New York?"

And we did. We arranged to meet at Penn Station and head over to our hotel near Central Park. We'd have dinner that night, enjoy the city the next day, go to the opera, and head home the following day. We discovered Pain Quotidian for tea. It's still a favorite of mine. 

Dinner the first night was an event. We went to Rue 57 and had cocktails, shared an appetizer, a beautiful steak, and dessert. We took our time and had so much fun. We must have talked about everything. We walked there and back. The opera was luminous. As we left, snow began to fall. Against a sparkling Manhattan night, it was magical. We stopped for a late dinner on the way back to our hotel. 

When we woke up the next morning and looked out the window, we knew we had been given a gift. We were snowed in. There were no cars on the streets. We arranged an extra night's stay and changed Mom's train reservation. I had taken New Jersey Transit and did not need a reservation. 

That day, we walked through Central Park, arm in arm, on the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mom was so happy. Radiant. The day was clear and beautiful. I told Mom I wanted to take a picture. She turned, with the most beautiful smile. I lifted my phone and snapped the picture. 

It was her favorite picture of herself. When she saw it she told me she wanted me to use it for her obituary. Mom could be like that, matter of fact about the fullness of life and its eventual ending. I think she loved the significance of the photo as much as the picture itself. She was full of hope, had survived a great ordeal and health crisis, and was looking forward to enjoying life fully again. That trip was the beginning of renewed vitality, a rebirth. Six months later she would discover that the radiologist who'd read her films had missed the small tumor that indicated the cancer had metastasized, but those days and the months between were happy and carefree. She lived for eight years after that, defying the 18-month prognosis they'd given her.

Mom left the Pendleton hound's-tooth jacket she wore that day and a few others for me. I finally unwrapped it this evening and tried it on. I put my hands in the pockets and drew something out. It was a wrapped chocolate from Rue 57. She'd kept it in her pocket all this time, a constant reminder of that beautiful time we spent together and the sweetness of it. Mom wore that jacket often. It was her favorite. I love that she held a token of that memory so close. I can imagine her rubbing her thumb over the smooth, shiny paper and remembering.

Every time I come to the house, I find little treasures like this. It's a big part of why I come and what is healing about these visits. It's such a bittersweet time, missing Mom and remembering the beautiful life we shared.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Afternoon

Soft cloudy pause

The kettle sounds

Water poured over tea leaves

There is no cake and

No cookies but

The tea is warm and 

Fragrant

I hold the cup in my hand

Close my eyes

Smile and

Remember

Afternoons with my mother

Laughing and 

Laughing some more

I talked with a friend today

We laughed and

Laughed some more and

Said good-bye

Each off to

Make a pot of tea

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

 

Ceiling Fan

It moves around and around like

Thoughts in my head and

Movements that carry me from

Workday to workday

Drive home

Make dinner

Wash the dishes or

Leave them to soak

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life. 

Night

Voices from the television sound in the living room while

I sit at the kitchen table and type a few words

There is nothing to see out the windows

Light has gone from the day 

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

 

Nightfall

A small loaf of bread sits on the board

Butter. Cheese. A knife.

Casual randomness guides their placement

It is the only space of order in my kitchen.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

 

Evening Poem

Pink cloud streaks a blue sky

Golden light breaks through 

Bright ribbon seam on the garment of the day

A breeze crosses the path of my view and

Lifts branches of trees and

Leaves on branches

I look up and the light has gone

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life. 

Morning Poem

A light breeze

Moves the light on the leaves

Layered

Tree beyond tree

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Comfort Food

The last time I made my mom chicken broth, I asked her if she wanted me to make it into soup, and she said, 

"No, sweetheart, just freeze it with the chicken meat."

I found it today and feel like she's taking care of me from beyond.

Talk about comfort food.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Two Months

Breakfast with my son at a cool Philly insider eatery

A seamless drive down I-95

Unloading a few bags at Mom's and flipping on the A.C.

Taking away the spent blossoms in their vases and 

Cutting more to replace them

Noticing what has changed since last I was here

What now is gone and the space it's created

A Zoom meeting for the anthology project

Mad discussion around so many things

This is so fun

In September it will be done

A moment to breathe, then, and 

Sip lemon-infused water

Take that minute and breathe

Heading over to my brother's for crabs

It is summertime in Washington after all

Remembering Mom 

Two months after her death

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Both Sides Now

I wrote a few letters this morning. One, to a friend of my mother, and another to my daughter. It's her birthday today, and I've noticed that on her birthday I think about where I was and what I was doing at the age she is now. Sometimes I tell her about it, and sometimes I write her a note or a letter. Or a letter on a note card, as I did today. 

I had a few insights when I was writing. Sometimes I notice that our lives swing out on a wide arc of experience and sometimes they come close and the same threads run through them. This is one of those close years. I also like to tell her something about the day she was born, little somethings that I remember as I am thinking about her.

While writing to my mother's friend I had an interesting insight about life -- this idea that we come to a certain age and we notice that we collect losses like flowers in a basket, and that we transform that awareness into understanding something wonderful about life. 

Each loss has another side to it. The wonder of what we had, what it gave us, what it taught us, how it blessed us, and the invitation to transmute the energy into something new that becomes grace for us even through the loss. 

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Bio Hazard

I've never found it easy to see myself.

I spend a lot of time in self-reflection. Besides being necessary to be effective in my work, it's also been something that is natural to me as an introvert. I like to talk about my experience, but when I'm asked to whittle myself down into 250 words or less, I get a little panicky. Not sure what that's about. Might be a good pathway for self reflection.

I'm other-directed. That means I think about whether other people are comfortable, whether other people feel cared for and tended. What others need. At the soul level. In my work, I think about this in questions. What do people need in order to learn how to think? To be able to love? To connect with their deepest self? To heal? To thrive? Sometimes I go a little overboard and don't give myself enough attention. During the COVID-19 crisis, especially the first year, it got a little out of hand and it was difficult to disconnect from work, which had invaded my home. Home is usually a sanctuary from work.

If we do things long enough, we create habits. 

If we bring awareness to our habits through self-reflection, we can choose differently if we want to make a change.

Change is hard. 

I'm thinking about all this because I need to write a bio for the anthology project. I have a bio. I have two versions of it. One I used for my book and the other I use for performances. Neither of them work for this project. I like to step back a bit in the bio so the work can step forward and speak. I usually write the bio from the third person perspective. For the anthology, we're writing bios from the first-person perspective and including our "why." 

Why do I write? Because I have to. Because if I don't, I am not me. 

That's not very lofty, but there it is. That's the truth of it. I'm like a honey bee flitting around a wildflower meadow. Sometimes I pause and go deep to gather the nectar. Pollen tends to collect on the textured spaces as I go. 

If you really want to know me, know what makes me tick, understand my "why," read my work. I tend to leave impressions of myself on the page. More of me is there than even I realize.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

 

Summer Camp

I don't know what I was thinking, but when the invitation came for the third time I said yes. Signed up without thinking too much, actually.

Some of it is an attempt to create something new to fill the holes left by the things that disappeared or changed as a result COVID-19. Some of it is the sense of whimsy that comes up when I think about childhood adventures at camp. Some of it is simply wanting to spend Sunday afternoons doing something other than feeling exhausted after work.

The first of four, two-hour sessions on consecutive Sunday afternoons began with women gathering under the trees at a local farm. We sat in a circle and introduced ourselves, did yoga and meditation, a walking meditation through the farm, came back and were offered a snack of fresh, local produce and had conversation before it was time to go. It was lovely.

I've noticed since COVID-19 began, that I am often in a high state of alert. That eased this afternoon and I noticed things like feel-good hormones and endorphins flooding my system. It reminded me of the years I spent enjoying a studio practice in yoga. What I name bliss. 

Nevermind that it was 90 degrees and the air hung heavy with humidity. That I was sweaty and needed a shower when I got home. That I was itchy from bugs. That the seating choices were the ground or the edge of a picnic bench. That I felt wobbly and unbalanced practicing on uneven ground outdoors. That I felt wobbly and unbalanced practicing yoga at all in a group after two years.

Nevermind all that. 

Nevermind.

It's nine o'clock and I feel like a kid after a good day of outdoor play, ready for bed and a good night's sleep.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

  

 

Salad Days

As I suspected, after a big push to complete a project, I'm flat. Low energy, some pain in the body, a desire to crawl into bed and sleep for days. Four busy days at work, including today, preclude living into that impulse, but at least I can say one day down, three more to go.

I'm drinking lots of beautifully infused water, pausing carbs for six days, and resting when I can. I notice that post-COVID there are some lifestyle patterns that have changed - things lost that will not go back to the way they were. things I really loved. It's funny how I'm noticing this only now. Perhaps I noticed before, but as fleeting thoughts rather than as insights that give me pause. 

The thing about big losses is they shine a spotlight on all the smaller losses and everything gets tossed together in one big loss salad.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life. 

Tug O' War

I am the rope.

I am pulling 

One end 

And the other.

I offer the action

And the reaction.

Who knew Newton's

Third Law of Motion 

Is at play in line editing?

As I cross out a word here

Change a word there

Go back and add the word back in

And change another back.

Still, some of the edits stick.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Re-Collection

Hip deep in poetry last night

This morning I read

Elven poems to a friend

In no particular order

Just began with the strongest

And then the next

Strongest

And the next

Until what was left were the tiny  

Bits of power poems

Bringing up the rear

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Happy Together

I’m doing mad work on a mini poetry collection for an anthology project. It’s been so wonderful to spend time on my art (and craft) within this strange work-stress-grief dance. The funny thing is I’ve been having so much fun this afternoon and have been so happy, I said to myself, 

“Oh, I need to call Mom.”

Meaning, of course, that I love to share these kinds of things with her. So I just directed my eyes upward and told her what I wanted to tell her, then closed my eyes and listened. I broke into the most lovely smile, and felt I’d been answered.

I’m hip deep in poetry tonight, trying to figure out the story arc and the arrangement of pieces - which goes first, last, is the anchor piece in the center? Thinking about how to make everything fit where it belongs. 

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

And the Winner Is . . .

I'm using a photo prompt for my writing today. It's late at night after three long days at work and nothing much is coming forward. 

I chose three possibilities. The first, a snarky meme that fits my mood. The second, a snapshot of the way I left my mother's house before heading back home on Friday. The third, a photo from my living room window of a beautiful evening sky. 

The photo of the sky really does not do it justice. The photo of the meme does not do me justice. The snapshot of a moment of leaving Mom's does everything justice ~ especially the space that held a family for generations, now empty of life because of death, but still filled with memory and the energetic signature of years of life and the lives of those whose energy whispers there still.

It may be a little crazy to leave cut flowers, knowing it will be ten days until my return, but I've been doing that -- leaving flowers. Sure, they need to be cleaned up and cleared away and replaced when I go back. The water might evaporate and there's no one to replace it. The flowers might wilt. But, of course, that's the nature of flowers.

And of life.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Mirror, Mirror

The other day when I was at Mom's, I stopped at a neighborhood grocery store, the kind that once was in many city neighborhoods and that we see so rarely these days. There were a few little things I wanted to pick up for some cooking I wanted to do and I thought it might be fun to bop around a funky little city shop rather than a larger chain store. It was.

I picked up a beautiful shallot bulb.

The next morning when I came downstairs, this long-haired fellow greeted me.

I have never seen a shallot sprout so quickly with so much green in a single night's growth.

I decided to skip the recipe and ended up bringing the shallot home with me.

The green sprouts have added no length since the first night.

Patterns of growth are so curious to me. I come across this in my work all the time. I may think a congregation is ready for a step or a next step and then discover there is a lot of work to be done before moving on. Other times, I think they might be stuck and suddenly they spring ahead to a place I'd not imagined possible. 

Sometimes it even seems to happen over night .

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

 

Musings on the 40th Day

I've been feeling blah this weekend and a bit out of sorts. I notice that I can fall into this after I've returned from spending time at my mother's house. The initial lustre is beginning to wear off these visits as I come (more) face to face with the "realness" of my mother's death. I know that grief is a process. I know that the brain has to map the new reality. I can feel the mapping happen and the initial cushioning that I felt in the early days begin to subside. The shock of the death of someone we love can put a buffer between a person and her grief, but it's not something that will last forever and eventually we're left raw from the loss.

I cut flowers from my mother's garden on this visit again and took them to the graves. There is a strangeness I feel, a sense of unreality, when I stand over the place where her ashes are buried, and the thought that all I can do with or for her now is bring flowers and visit her grave is, oh I don't know, something I can't quite wrap words around yet. 

I've been writing in tiny bits. I'm almost half way through this summer writing project. Today is the 40th day. The number of the Wilderness and the Underworld Journey. They open before me. In the Wilderness, the territory ahead is sweeping. It does not appear to be nourishing or supportive. It does not feel like a place I would choose. The Underworld is descent, and I have crossed the threshold. There is no turning back. The only way is ahead, and I am aware that I am moving through an initiatory experience. And like all such experiences, life will be different on the other side and so will I.

There is no clarity beyond that, no way to predict an outcome, no control. There is only a willingness to be sensitive to what is emerging. The opportunity is to notice, to grow through continuing to show up and not numb myself from my experience. 

The temptation is to put my head down, to be busy and distract myself from my feelings, but that feels like a disservice both to the love and life I shared with my mother and to what I might bring back by being willing to be present for this experience. The value of any Wilderness experience or Underworld Journey is what the soul willing to brave the experience can bring to the community. It's the most ancient motif of life together that we have. That we are willing to move through the hard times and be proof that we can survive our lives and the losses that are part of the fabric of experience. 

Mythologist Joseph Campbell called this idea the Hero's Journey. It's the journey of braving experience in order to bring back knowledge that will benefit the community. As I recount this, I think about how different the world is now than when Campbell was alive. He's been gone 35 years, and in that time our culture has shifted radically. And yet, the idea that the true hero is the person willing to show up and brave the full range of human experience feels more powerful than ever. 

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

 

Herbal Remedy

When I want to feel good, I go for the nose.

I've written about the scents of flowers, and nectarines ripening on the counter. About the loamy smell of earth and the evening fragrance of green, growing things in the late spring and early summer. This evening I reach for herbs in my little herb garden.

Thyme, rosemary, chives, basil, Italian parsley, and mint are what I gathered today. Just a tiny bouquet. It had the effect of a tiny vacation and transported me to bliss.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Just Across the River

 I spent the evening with friends, high atop a hill on a farm near Lambertville.

As the evening ended, the skies opened up and rain fell in buckets.

The heaviness of the heat and humidity cleared so beautifully.

Almost instantaneously.

I drove home through heavy rain slowly, slowly.

Across the river and on the other side of the bridge there was no rain. 

As if there never had been.

I climbed out of my car. 

Heaviness hit me like a wall.

Heat.

Humidity so thick the air felt impenetrable as I walked to my front door.

But now, as I sit in my kitchen writing, I hear rain singing in the night and

Even indoors the oppressive heaviness lifts.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Dance

A deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

And another.

And a third.

It's not enough. I need more. Probably an hour of this kind of breathing

To drive oxygen to my brain and clear my mind 

Of the monkey dance it does

When pressure from outside

Seeps inside and 

Coats my inner space with 

Thoughts driven

By projections into a future that has not yet been written.

So I write to remind myself to let go of the monkey's hand

And throw the arms of my mind up in the air

And spin

Wildly

In the beauty of now

Where there is nothing but the breath.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days..

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Apocalypse

Why is it that when a week away stretches out before you, it feels like forever, but then suddenly five days have passed and it feels like the world is quickly coming to an end?

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what's on my mind most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Boulangerie

This grief has moved from my heart into my hip. The left side, near the top. There is corresponding pain in my right shoulder. It reaches from my head to my heart.

There's something uncanny about this. Strange and mysterious, unsettling. Familiar. 

The body never lies. It has its own wisdom. I need a healer's hands to knead everything together. I need to rest and rise and rest again. To bake in a dark space.

I am becoming bread.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what my mind is on most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Freedom

I've got nothing to say, and everything.

Thoughts swirl like river currents.

I sit on the bank and watch.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what my mind is on most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life. 

The Things that Make Up a Life

I've been going through things here at Mom's house. There is so much to look at and to dispose of. I can do it only in small batches. At times I feel like I'd like to take everything home. Almost everything I touch is attached to a memory and feels special to me.

A few years ago I read about something called Swedish death cleaning. If you do an Internet search, you'll find lists and workbooks to help with it. There are blog posts about it and articles written and published. There's even a book. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter.

The basic idea is to go through and organize your own things as part of preparing for end of life circumstances like moving into senior housing or death. It feels very Scandinavian to me. Simplicity. Clean lines. Uncluttered. Organized.

I think my mother tried to do some of this. She tried for at least a year before she died. I don't think she got rid of much, but she did get some clarification around who she might like to pass some of her belongings to, and she also had the chance to read letters and journals and look at photographs. I think that put her life into some perspective and allowed her to reflect on family legacy and an interesting family history.

She began to pack things into boxes. I've seen things I did not know we had. Like a military dog tag that belonged to one of my paternal grandfather's brothers. He must have been in the service in World War II. I did not know that, and now I'm wondering if he died there. I am not sure we have a family record for that. My paternal family history is difficult to trace. It was kept through stories more than anything else, and I wonder sometimes if the stories are more like tall tales than history. My matrilineal family history is more defined.

These visits to my mother's house help to ease my grief in some ways, in other ways it feels more confrontational. I'm picking my way through a landscape that at times is rocky and at other times is thorny. The one thing I can say is that there is no way around it. 

The only way is through.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what my mind is on most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Out of Gas

I'm hoping today is the low point and that tomorrow will be a little better.

And the day after that, better still.

I lay awake last night with anxious thoughts swirling through my mind, then slept the morning away. I couldn't tell you what I did with the rest of the day. Except that I made a fabulous dinner. Crispy chicken thighs with lemon and tarragon and some tiny fingerling potatoes that roasted while I sipped a cocktail.

After that, I began to feel a little human again.

It's got me thinking about what I thought I'd be writing this summer. A few years ago my son suggested I start a food blog. I laughed at the thought of it, but then I thought about it a little more, and a little more after that, and began to think I might like to try it. 

Then during the toughest Covid year, I spent four months writing every day as part of the Akimbo community in The Creatives Workshop and had tremendous response to my food writing. Truth be told, I still didn't feel confident enough to put it out beyond the 400+ people in the workshop, so I never did. A few months ago I decided to finally do it this summer. Use my summer writing project as a pilot.

Well, you know what happened and where my mind has been for the last six weeks. 

But as I spend time here at Mom's house, and do some cooking in her kitchen and think about the times we cooked together and the love for cooking that is a family value, I begin to revisit the idea of the food blog. I'm not planning on starting it any time soon, but a bit of food writing might show up here and there this summer.

After all, food is life. 

Here's the recipe in case you'd like to make this yumminess -

Crispy Chicken Thighs with Fresh Herbs and Tiny Fingerling Potatoes

I used tarragon, but you can please yourself with herb choice. Use more than one if you like.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Season chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. Tuck the herbs under the skin. Thinly slice a lemon - two lemon slices per chicken thigh. Cut the fingerling potatoes in half, lengthwise. 

In a cast iron skillet, add a small amount of EVOO and prepared chicken thighs, skin side down. Cook on medium heat until the skin is golden and crispy. About 7-10 minutes. 

Flip the chicken over and add the lemon slices, two on each chicken thigh. Tuck the halved potatoes into the pan around the chicken with a little salt, pepper, herbs, and a drizzle of oil. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes.

***

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what my mind is on most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.  

Cultivating Beauty in Gardens of Stone

I spent time again in my mother's garden today, cutting flowers. I made bouquets and took them to the graves.

I've taken a week off for some bereavement time and am spending it away, at my mother's house. I hope for a quiet week, to let down and to be in the grief without having to compartmentalize it in order to fulfil social and professional functions.

I woke up this morning with a migraine. 

It's not surprising, really. I've been holding a lot of tension in my body, and the freedom of rest enables all that to release very quickly. Or maybe my body just doesn't know what to do with the energy when I no longer have to hold it so tightly.

So I've been moving gently through the day. I let myself cry when the impulse comes.

I took my time cutting the flowers from all the hydrangea bushes in the garden - blue, deep purple, rich, deep pink,  soft pink, and light, bright pink. The bouquet felt abundant and enormous as I carried it to the car. I cut some trailing vines from two of Mom's pothos houseplants and dug out some gold cord from a bin that has gift wrapping supplies. A trimmed plastic water bottle held the flowers while I transported them. 

The ride across town to the cemetery was slow, owing to heavy traffic. That's probably a good thing since Washington has installed traffic cameras everywhere to penalize careless or mildly-distracted drivers. 

The flowers from my aunt's burial almost three weeks ago were still there and directed me to her grave. I noticed a statue of an angel nearby, a landmark until the stone is placed. The ancestral plot is easy to find and well marked. It's been almost 20 years since a grave has been opened there. The grass on Mom's grave has almost grown back completely. The new grass is the only thing that whispers that a grave was recently opened.  

I made four bouquets with the flowers I brought and visited my grandparents, great-grandparents, aunt, and parents. I lingered with Mom for awhile, wondering what enables us to leave the remains of those we love in the earth. It is an ancient practice that hopes for rebirth - the tomb is a womb of sorts. I'm not sure that we are deeply conscious of the ancient impulse. 

To plant our parents like seeds in gardens of stone.

 

 

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what my mind is on most of the time.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.