love

Powerlessness is Freedom

/ boz bozeman / 2 Comments

Like many people, I feel very triggered by politics and politicians. That’s never been truer than over the past ten years for me.  

I’m not going to reveal my political leanings, because that’s not what this is about. It is about my recognition of my powerlessness. And how facing it has given me a sense of freedom that I have not felt in a very long time.  

As I was stressing my way through the millionth consecutive troubling news cycle, the realization finally hit me: I believed I had power over the politics and policies of our nation and world.  

But like just about everyone else, I don’t. I have my vote, I have my voice, and that is it. The President, my senators and congresshumans, literally anyone who has real political power does not know the thoughts in my head, the frustrations I feel, the stress and unhappiness elicited when something happens that I disagree with. 

Yet, I felt like I did have power. Like the intensity of my emotions and the correctness of my views could somehow make an impact on monumental world decisions.  So my frustration when things didn’t go my way was monumental, to the point where it impacted my mental health.

I guess I experienced the Five Stages of Grief. And I got pretty stuck on Anger, Depression and Bargaining. But each of those stages are steps on the journey, certainly not the destination.

The destination is Acceptance. And that means facing my powerlessness.

Yet when this happened, it opened up power. The power to invest the time, energy and emotion I had been wasting on my political disappointment and focus those on my job, my writing, my family and friends. Instead of unhealthy obsession, I am using my focus and thoughts to enhance my life.

I will never stop being interested in the world around me. But it’s not going to stop me from embracing my world.

Three Waves

/ boz bozeman / 14 Comments

The Tanka Tuesday challenge was to use words from this word garden:

I chose wave, two, sail and castle

I wrote three Tankas focused on different meanings of the word “wave”, and included the words “two”, “sail” and “castle” to focus my wavy theme. 

1.
Still water sailing
Contemplating smallest waves
Powerful enough
To lift our heavy boat up
Working with the ocean's strength

2.
She is first to wave
The only movement within
The stillest moment
And then we break free, smiling,
Surging, running, embracing.

3.
Thick brick and cold stone
An edifice of power.
A castle's defense
Has no strength to stop the wave
Flowing force of joy and love.

It’s Nice

/ boz bozeman / 1 Comment 
It’s nice to say nothing 
It’s nice to talk expansively 
It’s nice to hunch forward and stare at something intently. 

It’s nice to walk slowly 
It’s nice to run fast enough to create your own breeze 
It’s nice to know the difference between squirrel chitters and bird calls. 

It’s nice to love gently 
It’s nice to love passionately  
It’s nice to have a dog sit on your foot as you pet its head.

Bravery

/ boz bozeman / 2 Comments

I held my mother’s hand tightly, and she grasped mine with all the strength of her 88-year-old muscles. We stood on the sidewalk right outside the hairdressing studio. We had been standing there for a while. 

Her grip conveyed her fear: it was the step she needed to make from the sidewalk, over the curb down to the parking lot. My car was parked two feet away, running, the passenger door open for her. 

I told my partially deaf, partially blind old mother that she’d “Done this a million times before.”  

“I know. But I’m scared this time.” 

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This is what you shall do

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I read Whitman’s poem last night. Really a worthwhile read. 

This is what you shall do:
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labors to others,
Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
Have patience and indulgence toward the people,
Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,
Or to any man or number of men,
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
And with the young and with the mothers of families,
Read these leaves in the open air,
Every season of every year of your life,
Reexamine all you have been told,
At school at church or in any book,
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
And your very flesh shall be a great poem,
And have the richest fluency not only in its words,
But in the silent lines of its lips and face,
And between the lashes of your eyes,
And in every motion and joint of your body.

Do Look Back

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The baby is crawling at the verge of the ocean. Sometimes, he surges forward, into the thin skin of water that runs up the shore. He slaps at the water, delighted. Then he looks back at his mother, grinning at what he is discovering. Wanting to share it with her. 

The look back. We all do it. Even my dog Anna does it. It’s obvious what we are looking at: the eyes of those who love us. 

But why do we do it? What does meeting those eyes mean? 

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