Poet, Author, Composer....
Write a Psalm
342. Write a Psalm
Can you imagine the various people who wrote the psalms that we have. Some of them were praising. And some of them were questioning. Some of them were angry. You can do that when you write your own psalm. Ten years ago I wrote a psalm based a little on Psalm 13.
—
Why? Why this? Why Me?
—
Psalm 13 – How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
—
hard to remember the promises of God,
the generosity of God,
the lovingness of God
in the middle of hard times,
in the midst of painful times,
and I ask why—why God—why this—why me?
—
I toss and turn
cry out with anger and frustration
shout my questions
vent each feeling
from the center of my being
—
God receives it all
and sends back love and promises
of course—love and promises
—
for my God is the God of listening
the God of taking in all
the questions
anger
frustration
feelings
and giving back the promises
that are never withdrawn
giving back the love
that is never withheld
—
in the midst of the pain
that has only diminished
a little
I feel the bounty
of a God who gives
—
© Copyright 2002 by Ann Freeman Price
Asking for Help
341. Asking for Help
Quite a while ago I wrote about asking for what you want, and I even quoted a song that I had written titled “Ask for What You Want Today.” The parallel to that is to ask for what you need. I don’t have a song (yet) for that but I do have a couple to examples.
When my grandson Zachariah was around eighteen months old, I did some major daily babysitting for him. I had broken my right wrist, and while it was healed, it wasn’t very strong. (I’m sorry to report it still isn’t.) Usually before she left each day, Zach’s mother would open the babyfood jars I would need for the day and put them in the refrigerator. One morning I realized she hadn’t done it. It was lunch time and I tried and tried to open them but couldn’t. So I said, “Zach, let’s sit out on the front step, and the first person that walks by, we’ll ask to open the jars.”
He smiled, delighted to be going outside and we sat. As usual along Broadway, it wasn’t long before somebody walked by. We met them at the side walk, stated our
request, the person smiled and opened the jars. Back in the house we went for lunch!
Years later when I was in the midst of chemo treatments for breast cancer, I went to the grocery for just a few things. It was one of those days that I didn’t well. I was glad I only needed a few things. A woman stopped me and said, “Your shoestring is untied. I wanted to let you know so you don’t fall.” I thanked her and walked around the store carefully. I got in line to pay. I knew that if I bent down to tie my shoe, it would make me dizzy and at real risk to fall over. There was a man in front of me and I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around with a questioning look on his face. I smiled and said, “I’m in the middle of chemo treatments and my shoestring is untied. If I bend over…” He interrupted me, said, “I’ve got it—don’t say another word,” and he knelt down and tied my shoestring.
It’s an o.k. thing to do—to ask for what you need today.
Doing the Assignment
340. Doing the Assignment
For over a dozen years I ran writing groups in a variety of locations. I called it “Writing Down the Stories of Our Lives.” The goal was to encourage people to write down some of the parts of their lives (I wrote about this in #87 of this series).
We met once a month. We did a piece of instant writing where I gave a prompt, and right on the spot they would write. We would go around the circle and read those with no critique at all—just enjoyment. Another part of our process was to bring something in each time to read to the group. I encouraged the group to be supportive, to listen carefully, and to let the writer know if there were things they didn’t understand. I didn’t tell them what to write for this at-home assignment; I just told them to write.
And usually they did. Occasionally someone would come in with nothing to read and that inspired me to write:
—
The Writers’ Group
—
One ought to have something to read
For the group would soon wither to seed
If everyone came
With excuses so lame
One ought to have something to read.
—
But I like the group whether or not
I’ve brought my inspired little jot
I listen as they
Read their poems away
And I like the group whether or not.
—
If the Muse doesn’t bite us one bit
And we all come quite willing to sit
We will find it’s a riot
To sit in the quiet
And all hear what nobody writ.
—
© Copyright 1986 by Ann Freeman Price
Paring Down Again and Again and Again
339. Paring Down Again and Again and Again
I think it’s strange that I pare down my possessions over and over again and then in not too long a time I have to repeat the process, because I accumulate. I’m down to three rooms that are an addition to a house and so there is a limit to what will fit. However, there is a barn with endless room for storage, and it is too easy to think of something as a keepsake and put it in the barn in a plastic bin so the mice don’t find it. I was thinking this week that perhaps this summer or fall I need to go through those plastic bins and see if everything there is truly a keepsake.
—
God of plenty—
Help me keep “things” in proportion
to what is important in my “life,”
Guide me in shaving down the overage
that surrounds me.
—
Give me world perspective to see and feel
realities of others in far places.
And when the wanting nibbles at my self,
nudge me into waiting just a while
before acting on the want.
—
Inspire me to give and feel the joy
that comes from giving itself
and prompts even more giving.
—
So much to ask –
but then I have much,
and in the having
I need your help in whittling.
Amen.
Remember the Milkman?
338. Remember the Milkman?
In 1972 Clarence was our milkman. I don’t remember any milkman before Clarence. Now that either means that in Nashville, or Chicago, or even in Indianapolis we didn’t have milk delivered, or it means that none of the other milkmen were as memorable as Clarence. I think that was probably it.
When we moved to New York, to the A-frame on Grey Beech Lane, the other neighbors just automatically sent him to our door and we started ordering milk from him. I don’t have a memory of the name of the company. I just have memories of Clarence.
Grey Beech Lane was a short little road with a cul-de-sac and only six houses. I believe that when Clarence came to our road, he took a major coffee and play break from the rest of his route. I can’t believe that he played all day long as much as he played on our street.
First he played with the kids. There were lots of them between the six houses and he would organize a quick race, have them all ready to win this time and beat Clarence and then he would run the other way and claim a victory because they went the wrong direction.
He never left the milk outside. He came inside the house and put it right into the refrigerator. He usually called out as he entered, shouting “Hi—It’s Clarence.” And I would shout back from wherever I was “Hi Clarence” and come to meet him for a quick conversation.
One time I was busy putting clothes in the washing machine. I heard his entry into the house and his shouted “Hi.” And then the next thing I heard was “Ann, there’s something in the refrigerator that has green stuff growing on it. Can I take it out and put the milk in?” I shouted back with a laugh, “Sure Clarence–go right ahead.”
One of the neighbors said that sometimes she had cooked bacon laid out for her husband to grab before he went to work and that one day he called out to her “Where did you say the bacon was?” She called back “Right there on the kitchen counter.” He went to find her and said “Well it’s not there now.” She smiled and said, “I guess Clarence got to it first!”
One Christmas I ordered a wooden puzzle for Clarence—one of those kind that is so hard to put together. It didn’t arrive in time for Christmas but instead came in January. The next milk-delivery day I gave it to Clarence.
He put the milk in the refrigerator and then sat down at the dining room table with the package. He opened it up and started to try to solve it. I puttered around doing other things, passed him occasionally and would ask him how it was going. Finally a half hour had passed. I said, “Clarence, uh … what about the rest of your customers?” He looked up and then returned engrossed to the puzzle. “Yeah, in just a minute.”
I went upstairs to make the bed and got busy with other things and assumed he had gone. An hour later I returned to the main floor and found Clarence still working on the puzzle. “Clarence,” I called out, “Remember the milk route!” He reluctantly stood, puzzle in hand, and left for the rest of his route. We talked about the puzzle for many months after that as he struggled with it and passed it along to others to struggle with.
Once when the other children were in school and Dara was two, I was quite sick and was lying on the couch in the living room. Clarence came in and called out. He bounded up the steps to the main floor and found me on the couch. I said, “Oh Clarence would you find Dara. I think she went downstairs but I feel so badly, I can’t get up.” Down he went and scooped up Dara and brought her to me. He put the milk in the refrigerator and then stopped back in the living room. “Anything else I can get you?” he asked. “How about a blanket,” I said. I told him where and he went and got one and covered me up. He barricaded the steps so Dara would be contained on the main floor and went on his way.
Whenever milkmen are mentioned in this day and time, all of my children or I will inevitably say “Remember Clarence?” And we do! He loved to play. He loved the children. And on the side, he delivered milk.
Go After a Friend
337. Go After a Friend
Writiing about Paul and Thom yesterday reminds me of one of the things I learned in knowing them. I had known Paul even before he went to be pastor at Washington Square United Methodist Church in Greenwich Village. But I didn’t know him well. I had seen him at an Organists Guild meeting.
And then some years later I was at a writer’s conference for children’s curriculum and he was a special resource person one evening to talk with us about creative worship. I remembered him and thought as he talked that we were even more on the same wave-length than before. We spoke briefly and then he left. I finished out the conference and mulled over this person and our connection.
I had gone to several clown, mime, dance and puppet conferences and was asked by the Order of St. Luke’s to do a program on clowning for them. I suggested to them that I would like to do it with Paul Abels and it would become a program on creative worship, including clowning. They said fine!
I called Paul and asked if he would do it with me but before I hung up told him that I thought we had the possibility of a friendship between us and that I would like us to work on that. I invited him to spend two nights, so that we could get the program together but that we could also spend some talking together and figuring out where this friendship could go. He said yes to it all and it began!
I learned that sometimes I can’t just sit around and wait for a friendship to happen. Sometimes I have to go after it and put some energy into it. Through Paul, I met Thom, and the three of us had a grand friendship until Paul’s death. And Thom and I continue.
My life is richer because of the friends I have gone after!
Art Affects Attitude
336. Art Affects Attitude
A story: In the fall of 1992 I went on the train with my friend Thom to Washington, DC. We were going to see the AIDS quilt spread out on the National Mall. My friend, Paul Abels, had died the spring before and his section of the quilt would be there. His partner, Thom, and I were both filled with emotion that Paul had died and filled with anticipation for seeing his quilt piece as part of the display. I was also dealing with another issue and looking for an answer.
We got to the Mall too soon and so wandered away from the site and into the sculpture garden of the Hirshhorn Museum. Suddenly there she was—a sculpture titled Standing Woman. She was impressive, cast in bronze in 1933 (the same year I was born) by Gaston Lachaise who lived from 1882 to 1935. He was an American sculptor of French birth. She was nude and her powerful body spoke volumes to me.
She said to me, “Here I stand. I am strong and capable just like you.” I took her picture and knew that in her I had found my answer. The interesting thing is that she has continued to affect my attitude toward myself. I have a 5×7 print of that picture framed and standing in a place I pass often. I see her daily. She continues to talk to me daily about our strength and power.
Write—and then Write Some More
335. Write—and then Write Some More
Years ago I was in therapy and I shared with this therapist a set of poems I had written after a traumatic event in my life. They were sparse. They were strong. They were clear. This therapist asked if I would bring him a set so that he could share them with a friend of his who taught writing at Columbia University. I said that he could share the set he held, because I had the original set at home. Several weeks later, he handed them back to me and I said, “What did she think?” He said, “She said they were interesting, but they are not poetry.”
It stopped me for a while—writing. After all she was teaching at Columbia. And then because I have never been able to not write, I started up again. And I have never stopped. I have led groups for fifteen years on writing down their stories—in prose, or in poetry—I have told them “Write!” And never will I be judgmental about their writing. I tell the group as we give feedback on something someone has read that they wrote, “The person who writes decides whether or not to make changes. Your writing is yours. We’ll give you feedback if there is something we didn’t understand, something is not clear. Then you decide whether to change it or whether to keep it exactly as you have it. It is your writing.”
No judgment. Just write—and then write some more!
The Nonsense of Numbers
334. The Nonsense of Numbers
It happened in 1999. We raced across the YMCA pool—four year old Lissa, and sixty-six year old me. Her legs thrashed like riding a bicycle in her zeal to get to the other side first. She clung to what she called the “marshmallow stick” which enabled her to stay afloat since she was at the beginning of swimming skills.
I hung back, then would zoom forward enough to inspire her to increase her thrashing in the middle of her giggles of expectation and her panic that I might “win.” At last we reached the other side, her reaching out and touching the side wall of the pool first. I came in just a second later, my face full of disappointment, her face full of glee at winning again. Over and over we crossed the pool with her proclaiming at the other side, “I’m Number One!”
Finally as we crossed, I stayed even with her and then reached out and touched the pool wall before she did. A second later she touched the wall, our situations reversed, and I said, “I’m Number One, right?” She didn’t miss a beat, shaking her head in the negative as she said, “No—” and then looking brightly at me she said, “You’re Number Two! Are you excited?”
We laughed together.
Later that night I thought of it again—something more here for me.
Something about the competition, losing the excitement of Number Two in the discouragement of missing out on number One. Something about the comparative virus I catch from time to time which slows me down almost to snail’s pace with fears of never being able to do it “that” well. Something about the joy of the swim—the fun of the thrashing—the giggles—the expectation. Something about littleness swimming right next to much, much bigger, and littleness trusting that this is going to be great—the crossing itself is going to be an event.
As I got out of the car, saying goodbyes, throwing kisses to small ones in car seats, she held out her hand, “Here—-Here Grandma—-It’s for you!” That same excitement in her voice reached out along with her hand. I took her gift and once inside saw it clearly—a penny! A penny for Number Two. I can keep it in a special place and remember to be excited!
Where Are You Going
333. Where Are You Going
I found this poem that I wrote in 1977, thirty-six years ago. I’m not sure whether it has something to do with then, or with yesterday.
—
where are you going
why must you run
will you ever stop and slow down
what do you ache for
why do you cry
what do you cherish today
—
I cherish the song
and share it with strangers
who listen from space where they are
and I look through the clouds
and the tangles of living
to see the sky and a star
—
where are you going
what will you do
what are your furthermost dreams
how are you heading
how will you change
what will you reach for today
—
I’ll reach for the sun
and the buttercup that’s blooming
at the top of the field where I go
as I head for my mountain
I’ll hold out my hand
to a little girl that I know
—
where are you going
will you stay near
what is your ultimate goal
how can I find you
how will I know you
can I hold on somehow
—
I’ll blow of the tops of
a white dandelion
and follow the seeds where they go
I’ll climb and falter
and strut and stumble
and tiptoe where willow trees blow
—
© Copyright 1977 by Ann Freeman Price
New Release!!
Daybook of Personal Faith
Mama and Me
