Three Women (Carrie Newcomer)

How amazing to think I've been back almost three weeks... and haven't posted in almost two weeks - overwhelmed and sensory-overloaded and crazed, oh my!

M just offered up A Challenge!, which I'll rise to in the next day or so - in the meantime, I wanted to mention a most lovely evening at my friend Nancy's a few nights ago. I appreciated The Circle of Life theme... and it was nice to celebrate a few friends' August and September births as well as honor mom's passing - thanks to all for allowing me a chance to talk about the experience, even for a bit... and with more than a few tears...

I loved everyone's contributions (Sandy's Gibran, Alisa's P.D. Eastman, Judi's poems, one of which is reprinted below) - I also reference the perfect book Susan P. gifted me with (she had no idea we used to use that song in our pre-K graduation video, oh so many years ago, in my preschool director life). I brought a few photo albums as well as Mom's plastic tiara (which many of you will recall I had on a pillow on her couch back in Georgia before bringing it home to rest on a shelf in my curio cabinet) - the feelings are still fresh and the grief process at this level is new to me. I don't want to segue into "business as usual" and gloss over what is real and deep and ongoing - I cherish my women friends, their importance being one of the many legacies from my mom...

The below essay came to me in a forward, unattributed - it suits...

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GIRLS IN MY CIRCLE

When I was little, I used to believe in the concept of one best friend, and then I started to become a woman. And then I found out that if you allow your heart to open up, God would show you the best in many friends.

One friend is needed when you're going through things with your man. Another friend is needed when you're going through things with your mom. Another will sit beside you in the bleachers as you delight in your children and their activities. Another when you want to shop, share, heal, hurt, joke, or just be. One friend will say, 'Let's cry together,' another , 'Let's fight together,' another , 'Let's walk away together.'

One friend will meet your spiritual need, another your shoe fetish, another your love for movies, another will be with you in your season of confusion, another will be your clarifier, another the wind beneath your wings.

But whatever their assignment in your life, on whatever the occasion, on whatever the day, or wherever you need them to meet you with their gym shoes on and hair pulled back, or to hold you back from making a complete fool of yourself... those are your best friends.

It may all be wrapped up in one woman, but for many, it's wrapped up in several... one from 7th grade, one from high school, several from the college years, a couple from old jobs, on some days your mother, on some days your neighbor, on others, your sisters, and on some days, your daughters.

Thanks for being in my circle.

SONG: Three Women by Carrie Newcomer (scroll down to page 17)

BOOK: Forever Young by Bob Dylan, Paul Rogers (illustrator)

POEM: Just Lying on the Grass at Blackwater by Mary Oliver

I think sometimes of the possible glamour of death -

that it might be wonderful to be

lost and happy inside the green grass -

or to be the green grass! -

or, maybe the pink rose, or the blue iris,

or the affable daisy, or the twirled vine

looping its way skyward – that I might be perfectly peaceful

to be the shining lake, or the hurrying, athletic river,

or the dark shoulders of the trees

where the thrush each evening weeps himself into an ecstasy.

I lie down in the fields of goldenrod, and everlasting.

Who could find me?

My thoughts simplify. I have not done a thousand things

or a hundred things but, perhaps, a few.

As for wondering about answers that are not available except

in books, though all my childhood I was sent there

to find them, I have learned

to leave all that behind

as in summer I take off my shoes and my socks,

my jacket, my hat, and go on

happier, through the fields. The little sparrow

with the pink beak

calls out, over and over, so simply – not to me

but to the whole world. All afternoon

I grow wiser, listening to him,

soft, small, nameless fellow at the top of some weed,

enjoying his life. If you can sing, do it. If not,

even silence can feel, to the world, like happiness,

like praise,

from the pool of shade you have found beneath the everlasting.

QUOTE(S): “If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” ~ Tom Stoppard

"Friendship is a combination of art and craft. The craft part is in knowing how to give and how to take. The art part is in knowing when, and the the whole process only works when no one is keeping track." - E. L. Konigsburg