Because I could not stop for Death...

Here I am, contemplating death again. We’re not great at talking about or dealing openly with death and grief in Western culture. But now, as I’m fast approaching my seventh decade in this incarnation, I can’t seem to avoid it. And maybe that’s a good thing.

I’ve said goodbye to people throughout my life—grandparents, too-young friends, cousins—but right now, maybe starting just before the pandemic, it’s become a pile-up of losses, and it’s the pile-up, I’m convinced, not any single loss by itself, that’ll do you in. In a pile-up, there’s no recovery/healing time between blows. I’ll spare you the list of people we’ve had to let go of in recent years—trust me, it’s a looooong list that includes both parents. And I know I’m at the age where more frequent deaths are natural and inevitable—just check out obituaries and you’ll see how many people are…well…my age. What I’d rather talk about is how to climb over the pile-up and keep moving on.

Everyone has their own way of navigating death and grief—some ignore it, some bottle it up, some rely on religious faith, some fall apart. I’m not a person who can choke it down effectively (I tend to spontaneously spew my despair eventually; heaven help the innocent bystander). Bottling usually results in some physical manifestation for me—a twitch, a pre-ulcerous condition, inflammation, achy joints, etc., so that’s not a good strategy for me, either. So what I try to do is what I do with most things—analyse: its wrinkles, contours, possible meanings, effects, and outcomes. My basic belief about what happens after death is that, like everything else, we are energy. And because energy doesn’t die, I think we just drop the skin suit and disperse. That much is science, not woo-woo. Beyond that, I don’t KNOW, and neither does anyone else still alive (some BELIEVE they know, but belief isn’t KNOWING).

That’s actually pretty comforting to me. Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, some essence of us continues. But I don’t think the part of me that will continue has anything to do with the “me” I’ve crafted over the seven decades of my earthly life—the stories I tell myself that make up what I perceive as my individuality/personhood. I don’t think I’ll be playing canasta with my mom and grandma in some heavenly parlour, or have wings, or burn in an imaginary hell. Instead, I’ll revert back to unformed pure potential. Potential for what purpose? I don’t KNOW that either.

I do have a personal BELIEF (woo-woo) in reincarnation, because it’s energy changing forms, which energy is wont to do, and would explain a lot of things for me—déjà vu, memories that don’t seem to be mine, instant feelings about someone I’ve just met, a finite amount of energy (remember it cannot be created) and a constant or growing population—recycled energy.

Science and my beliefs help me process grief, which we don’t really “get over” but learn to live with—I’ve experienced waves of grief out of the blue months or even years after a loss. An “energy is all” death/dispersal explanation doesn’t satisfactorily explain for me why people have to suffer, why there are so many devastating ways to die, why we can’t just “blink out” when our bodies are injured beyond repair or are no longer serviceable. I guess maybe it’s still better than my energy suddenly changing forms by being eaten by a leopard or an alligator, as happens with many other animals.

This week we’re saying goodbye to a dear friend of many years, and to a gifted mentor and poet. In both cases, they leave their kind-hearted, intelligent offspring and their musical, artistic, and lyrical talents behind for those of us still here—like bodhisattvas in the Buddhist tradition. And now that we know a mother’s cells continue in her offspring (https://www.sciencealert.com/millions-of-your-mothers-cells-persist-inside-you-and-now-we-know-how) and that cells might have memories (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-cell-remember/) I have even more faith in our continuity, albeit in a different form.

I'm excited for new neuroscience and quantum physics, both of which are re-thinking consciousness, time, space, and life/death. But for now, when it comes to death and grief, I guess I find solace mostly in energy science, with a smattering of woo-woo, to remind me that life truly does go on. Also, I have a strong community with which I share this road, and as Ram Das said, "We're all just walking each other home." 

 

Navigating the GAP

I’d like to overshare my recent/current thoughts about getting older. Look away if you’re squeamish, because I’m 69, and this is the Golden Age of the Procedure (GAP).

Even when I was younger, we wanted to talk about our health—how super-fit we were, why YOUR lifestyle choices were all wrong, why you should have listened to our “friendly advice” on diet/supplements/workouts/blahblahblah. However, post-retirement and currently in my “golden years” (which I now understand to mean tarnished with a smattering of heavy metal poisoning), the conversation has changed.

Now, we compare conditions, illnesses, strange growths, bodily losses (elasticity, hearing, vision, energy, hair, flexibility, the ability to laugh/sneeze without peeing), titanium replacements, and procedures like we used to compare career accomplishments or rare bourbon finds.

A new topic of GAP gossip is GLP meds and/or our “weight loss journeys.” I’m in no way ashamed to tell you that thanks to GLPs, I’ve lost 60+ lbs. And although GLPs may have their own problems (believe me, I get earfuls of “friendly advice” about the disasters awaiting me—hair loss, diarrhea, nausea), it sure beats dragging around those three 20-lb sacks of potatoes I used to have strapped under my chin(s), around my non-existent waist, and on my hips. And does it feel good to get back into human “girl” clothes after decades in circus-tent Big & Tall men’s athletic wear? You betcha.

When my friends and I got together in our youth (anything up to age…uh…60), we compared vacations, concerts, our sex lives, recipes, and various partner-related adventures. Now we compare bone density scans, hormone replacement therapies, arch supports, sleep (or non-sleep) cycles, orthopaedic procedures, ENT follow-ups, CPAP settings, functional medicine specialists, supplements (pumpkin seed oil for hair loss, DIM and A-Drenal for hormone support and fatigue, magnesium for dang near everything…), and the best bras for hoisting up the girls. Talk about sex has moved much lower down the list, just below a good gel eyeliner that doesn’t pull on delicate old-people skin and a body butter that solves the “scaly leg” problem.

Ray and I go out to dinner with friends once a week, after his weekly gig at our Little Town Watering Hole. The topics of conversation can be varied and fascinating, but upcoming appointments and procedures, as well as general medical advice (because we’re all medical experts now) usually pop up once or twice. We drive each other for colonoscopy and cataract appointments now, like we used to drive each other for shopping or salons.

We do occasionally talk about other things. Lately it’s politics. But given a choice right now, I’d rather hear about your plantar wart removal…

Lend me your ears.

Let’s TALK about LISTENING. 

See what I did there? That’s how TERRIBLE we are at listening. High on my very long list of “to do” inner work (practicing kindness and compassion that doesn’t expect recognition or repayment, offering ACTIVE help rather than passive talk about helping, creating and giving more positive energy, lovingly letting go of attachments to things and people that aren’t in some way life-giving, not burning the potato soup, and so much more) is striving to become a better listener.

If you pay attention to most conversations—really pay attention—you’ll quickly notice this pattern: Someone speaks to you, but you don’t really pay attention or register what they’re saying. Your mind is already busy planning/rehearsing what you’ll say next about YOURSELF. And as soon as the person speaking to you takes a breath or pauses, you shove into the “conversation” something similar, relatable, better, more interesting, or wonderful about YOURSELF. And while you’re talking, the person you’re talking to isn’t listening to you, either…they’re busy getting ready with whatever they’ll shove into the next pause. Ad infinitum.

Good listening is essential, I think, for these reasons and more:

• It can build relationship, community, trust, and mutual respect.
• It can teach us to distinguish nuances, tone, subtleties that can reveal another person’s needs.
• It can teach us about unfamiliar "others." (There really are no others, in the "we're all one" sense of humanity...)
• It can bridge differences between people, but only if we give our FULL ATTENTION.

Most people on this planet long to be heard, but it’s as if we’re all talking about ourselves at once, so NO ONE is really listening. We can’t give our full attention and plan our next monologue at the same time. And listening is so much more than just waiting for our turn to talktalktalk; listening is an ACTIVE art, and like any art, we need practice. We need to practice slowing down, calming ourselves, and giving our speaking partners UNDIVIDED attention.

Think of the way babies and children learn—we think they’re often idling away their time in thoughtless bliss, but as a mom of three who swears like a pirate, trust me—they’re usually listening carefully. The old saying, “It’s more important what comes out of your mouth than what you put in it,” is actually a gem of listening (and dieting) wisdom.

So how did we get to be so terrible at listening? It may be partly the myth of multitasking and our modern obsession with busy-ness. But I’m with creative strategist (whatever that is) Noah Rabinowitz when he suggests our inability or unwillingness to listen is mostly the result of unchecked and/or undisciplined EGO (the culprit in most of my necessary inner work). I like how he explains the ways EGO undermines our ability to truly listen:

-- Preoccupation with Self: When our ego is in control, we become preoccupied with our own thoughts, opinions, and experiences. This self-centered focus makes it difficult to genuinely listen to others….

-- Need to Be Right: The ego often drives the need to be right and to win arguments (debates). This need can lead to interrupting others, dismissing their viewpoints, or not fully considering their perspectives. Instead of listening to understand, we listen to find flaws in the other person’s argument and to assert our own correctness.

-- Fear of Vulnerability: The ego protects us from feeling vulnerable. Truly listening to someone else requires us to open up to their ideas and emotions, which can be uncomfortable. The ego resists this by keeping us guarded and defensive, preventing us from fully engaging in the conversation.

-- Judgment and Assumptions: The ego often leads us to judge others and make assumptions about their thoughts and intentions….We filter what they say through our biases, frequently missing the core essence of their message.

I’m not saying better listening would solve the world’s problems, but I’m pretty sure it would help. It’s our 37th wedding anniversary this month, the alabaster anniversary. I can’t see gifting Ray an alabaster statue of Socrates, so maybe I’ll give him the gift of really listening to him—for a day, at least. 😉

Can it get much colder? Always.

Consider this our “Christmas card/letter,” which I gave up sending out on the regular back when I spent every minute of my holiday break grading essays/finals, prepping for a new semester, and squeezing in a day or two of decorating/shopping/making/wrapping/cooking.

It’s 2026 now, and we’re currently in an arctic deep freeze. Right now it’s 1 degree (wind chill of -7), but it’s been colder in the past week. And none of this is as cold as the turned shoulders in Washington or ICE in Minneapolis.

Winter’s never a joke around here, so it pays to be prepared. As our friend Spiro says about South Dakota winter, “It keeps the riffraff out” of our fine state. (Sadly, politics may have changed our “finery” some, and we may now be attracting riffraff.) We’ve been lucky weather wise—can one be “lucky” in the face of global climate change?—and have had milder winters these last couple of years. Seriously, we probably could have kayaked a couple times last winter. This year seems a “real” winter, though.

Ray is busy with his winter “lockdown” activities—archiving digital music and transferring CDs, tapes, and vinyl to digital; refining/reorganizing several notebooks of chord charts and lyrics; and practicing guitar and trombone daily (you haven’t lived until the trombone version of “Moon River” wafts through your heat ducts). He plays drums every Friday with his pals at our Little Town Watering Hole, a weekly gathering we like to call “church.” And he spent part of his pre-holiday time playing with an annual touring Christmas show, A Holiday for Fiddles.

Meanwhile, I’m off to later this week as a facilitator for two out-of-town stops in the 3rd year of the South Dakota State Poetry Society’s POETRY ON THE ROAD. I’ve been criss-crossing the state from last September till May with other SDSPS members, giving readings and holding open mics in 21 or so South Dakota communities.

My 4th poetry book, Hysterian, came out from Finishing Line Press in August, and we had a wonderful book launch at our Little Town Library, with a reading, slide show, and discussion. Three of our four kids showed up to pitch in—daughter brought her delicious baked treats, younger son videotaped, older son staffed the book sales table, and grandkids ran amok. My fifth book, Stroke Stroke, comes out in February. I’m otherwise busy with jigsaw puzzles (very meditative), knitting silly hats, and being trained by chihuahua Fiona Diane, Goddess of the Hunt (aka Fifi, aka Phoebe, aka Tyrant-osaurus Regina, aka The Boss) to heel and obey.

While we wait for Jack Blizzard to throw his next tantrum—it’s inevitable—the larder is stocked with our summer garden gifts, we’re warm, and we’re enjoying semi-hibernation. Kid visits are always a highlight, and three dogs, 12 canaries, and a 29-year-old grey parrot keep us on our toes. Yes, it may take a LOT of Advil to limber up again in the spring. Yes, we may need to renew our gym memberships to conquer the Festivity Flab. Yes, we may be hairier and muskier when the doors open again for good in April or May. But we’re hearty prairie people, and by gum, we’re just swell.

Wishing you and yours a prosperous, peaceful new year, and wishing us all sanity and justice ASAP.

Fiona, Pretzel, and Pedro

Come September

It’s the end of August here in Little Town, and all the kiddies are back in school. The college kids are swarming Walmart, stockpiling ramen, energy drinks, and Little Debbie cakes. They might be packing heat this year, too, thanks to our suck-up-to-the-tyrant legislature, so flak jackets are this year’s trending holiday gift for any college faculty and staff on your list. K-12 kids are back in their classroom petri dishes, passing around their viral/bacterial loads. Hummingbirds are slowly buzzing back through, early birds (see what I did there?) on their way back to Mexico.

Here on the Row, it’s been a weird summer. The weather has been strange—smoke from Canadian and Western fires, weeks of extreme heat, weeks of rain, storms that bring down trees. Our garden, slow to get going, suddenly took off quite late and is now a semi-tropical, impassable rainforest, but somehow unproductive (except for cukes…you want some cukes?!?). I’ll roast and freeze only my second load of tomatoes today; I’d normally be eyeball-deep in canning season right now.

I turned 69 this summer. That’s darned-near 70. I remember telling my friend once that his mother shouldn’t be driving alone from South Dakota to Texas. She was 50 at the time. I also remember thinking once that my mom had one foot in the grave and I could lose her at any moment. I was 14. She was 34. My, how our perspective changes…

Pedro and Fiona watch for fish.

We did very little traveling this summer, but we did make it to Kansas to scatter my mom's and dad's (and my mom's dog Oprah's) ashes at the lake cabin Mom loved so much. It was a quick trip with all three dogs, but a sweet mission of love.

Another weirdity (okay, I"m making these words up) this summer is the continuing, escalating Great Disturbance: democracy’s depressing decline and the greed, narcissism, and cruelty of the current badministration and MAGA sycophants; I’m generally a pretty insightful person, but honestly, I don’t get it. I don’t get how this happened, why it’s still going on, and how so many people could be so duped and so selfish.

This darker energy is also complicated by the standard “facing mortality” thing that crops up as we get older—a growing list of family, friends, and Little Town villagers have moved through the veil into the Beyond, are heading there (as are we all, Iowa senator Joni Ernst reminds us), or are living (suffering sometimes) with an assortment of serious injuries or ailments. I realize that mathematically, I’m also nearing the end of my tenure in this body. I know these things are natural and inevitable. I’m not afraid of death; I DO believe it’s a passage (to what, I don’t know) and not an ending. But I don’t like saying goodbye to the people in my little bubble.

Pretzel waves at passing boats.

In another bout of weirdness, our roof started leaking, and our fridge and dishwasher died on the same day. My very wise daughter, whose fridge also died, claims our collective frantic energy and anxiety over the state of our country is breaking stuff. I’m sure she’s right.

Meanwhile, retirement life goes on at the Row. Ray practices drums, guitar, and trombone, he archives his audiophile collections, and he’s still playing drums with the Boyz every Friday night at our Little Town Watering Hole—a weekly well-attended ritual we affectionately call church. I’m writing, working jigsaw puzzles (very meditative), knitting whenever I can manage a dog-free lap, and tending to a ridiculously large collection of houseplants. Our 3 dogs are constantly at work training us, and don’t get me started about the 30-year-old self-plucking parrot or the 10 molting canaries.

The Boyz in the Band

On we go. Happy Labor Day weekend to you all, and many thanks to the women and men who gave us unions. And as the mornings get chillier, I’m wishing for us all a golden, peaceful, SANE autumn, for compassion to stir in the hearts of Republicans, for sensible gun legislation, and for full larders, even if they’re only full of pickles.

Gustav Klimt, jigsawed

Somewhere there's a garden gate...

Gratuitous pic of daughter's dragonfly banana cupcakes

If the Body is a Temple...

I don’t know if Sylvia Plath had ink, but she once said, “If the body is a temple, then tattoos are its stained glass windows.” Amen, Sylvia.

"Turtle" from The Sea is My Ugly Twin, in process
by Johnny Wheatstraw, Vishnu Bunny Tattoo

I got my first tattoo when I was 61. I’d planned to do it for a few decades, but I got busy and couldn’t decide what I wanted permanently etched on my pale, freckled skin. Imagine Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm with an anchor tat. Or Heidi of the Swiss Alps with a skull...

I knew I wanted a constant reminder to always bring my attention back to the Center—to what really matters—but I didn’t know what that reminder could be. Then I discovered the Sanskrit phrase, sat-chit-ananda, which refers to the true nature of reality, the tripart aspects of the god principle: truth, consciousness, bliss. So I put it on my left forearm with a lotus flower (a symbol of the mind), where I would see it everywhere I went.

Sat-Chit-Ananda with lotus, by Johnny Wheatstraw

Then, one night in the same year, Ray and I both dreamed about turtles. In some Native cultures, turtles represent the link or balance between earth/water and sky/spirit. The dream eventually became a poem, “Turtle,” which I included in my first-ever poetry book manuscript, The Sea is My Ugly Twin. Later that year, I signed my first-ever publishing contract for that book, and the turtle became my second tattoo, an “illustration” of the poem and the book, and a celebration of finally having a book published.

So that was me with fresh ink at age 61 and at least one foot pretty far down the rabbit hole.

Let’s zoom ahead. I just turned 69 this month. I will publish my 4th book, Stroke, Stroke, in February of next year. My 3rd book, Hysterian, comes out next month, and my 2nd book, The Book of Crooked Prayer, came out when I was 64. I also have two finished but unpublished manuscripts to shop around to publishers.

For each book/manuscript except one, I now have a tattoo representing one of the poems in that book. And the last design is in the works. The tattoos seem random to some, disconnected from each other, and I often have to explain them. (I should hand out wallet-size, laminated cards that explain them—a topographical map). You’ll have to buy the books to read the tat poems. You can go to Marcella Remund for links to buy the books, or check Finishing Line Press, or Amazon.

"Rapture" (cinquefoil flowers) from Some of This is True (unpublished)
by Erin Bennett, Thistle & Ivy Tattoo

"I Have No Proof" (moon), from The Book of Crooked Prayer,
design by my brother Joe Prescher,
ink by Allison Haney, Moon Rae Tattoo
"St. Brigid's Oak" from The Sin Ladder (unpublished) by Allison Haney

"Hummingbird Moth" from Hysterian, by Erin Bennett

Here’s a puzzler: The book tats are all on my right forearm (I need to keep sat-chit-ananda solo for focus). They’re all together on this arm because I want to see them—they’re for me, after all, not for anyone else—but I’m a stubby little short person with baby-sized forearms, and I’m running out of room. Also, it’s unlikely I’ll stop writing, so...

The takeaways from my little ink story? (1) You are NEVER too old to do what you love (both publishing and tattoos, for me); and (2) When someone says, “tattoos are addicting,” don’t laugh.

The Spring of My Discontent

It’s early spring on the Row, and the sky is full of honking geese. The robins, grackles, and starlings are back in South Dakota. The college students’ little blue legs are poking out of their nylon basketball shorts, and their little frozen feet spill over their rubber flip-flops. Under the leaf piles, patches of grass are already trying to turn green. Warm days, some in the 60s and 70s, will probably fool the trees and flowers into budding, although you can never write off the possibility of a spring blizzard.

Spring has always been a time of relief and optimism for me, a time when GREEN = GOOD. But this year feels different. Our country’s political upheaval is the spring storm everyone is watching right now. I’m not sure millionaires and billionaires can understand the fears so many people are living with, and the debilitating way these fears are pick-pick-picking away of any sense of wellbeing we had before the past 6 months or so. Let me guzzle another glass of wine, pop a Xanax, and slug down a cup of NyQuil, while I share some of my current fears:

1. Ray and I live on Social Security and a tiny retirement I get from my former teaching position. We still pay a mortgage. If Social Security goes away or is reduced, we are in serious trouble. Like living-under-a-bridge trouble. Or, many older Americans like us will have to move in with our children, 2 or 3 or 4 families in a single family dwelling. I know people are forced to do this now in many other countries; I just never thought that we’d have to do that here, after long careers and retirement. I’m stockpiling blankets and canned beans; I see us in some bizarre WillyWonka’s-grandparents kind of situation.

2. I want my daughter, daughters-in-law, granddaughters, and nieces to own their bodies. I want them to make their own decisions about what happens (or doesn’t) with their own bodies. I want them to be able to get a safe, physician-assisted abortion if they choose to. I want them to be able to safely terminate a high-risk pregnancy or remove a nonviable or dead fetus if they need to.

3. I want science. I want warnings about and solutions for pandemics. I want someone to pull stuff off the market that’s going to kill folks. I want real treatments for obesity, not moralistic “just eat less and exercise more” scolding. I want tested, drinkable water. I want air I can breathe. I want vaccines. I want all the safety czars and air traffic controllers.

4. Please, can the U.S. be welcoming again? Can we give refuge again? Can we give up the “me” for the “we”? I will share what I have. There’s more than enough for everyone. We don’t need to make America rich again. I don’t want the razor wire. I won’t own a gun. Canning tomatoes is the only prepping I’m interested in. We need to make America kind again.

5. I want my trans family member to get whatever medical care they need. I want them to live a long, healthy, productive life in a body they feel is their own and that fits their identity. I want them to live in a world that embraces them with compassion and equality. I want to celebrate the joy of their love at their marvellous kick-arse wedding, even if their colors are pastels. I recently saw a picture of a woman who’s undergone body modification surgeries to look like a bat, including removal of her nose, which she can reattach when she wants…so species-affirming medical care is okay, I guess? Repeated reconstructive surgery to make oneself look perpetually 18 or to raise one’s vampire eyebrows isn’t identity-affirming care?

6. I’m an opinionated woman who does not always (never?) hold back. I’m pretty sure the entire world wants to know just what I think. I’m not sure I’d survive in a country that punishes critical or dissenting speech with firing or deportation, censors or stifles media, bans books, and will not listen to ideas except from a small group of elect. If, one of these days, I’m just not here, you’ll know they finally looked through my phone or Crackbook account.

7. I don’t want to live in a country of white people—I mean, some of us are only just now learning not to be jerk colonists. (Clearly, some of us haven’t even started to learn.) I want to learn about other cultures up close; I want to live among and learn from people of all ethnicities, backgrounds, religions, non-religions, traditions, walks of life; okay, I want real Thai food made by Thai people. I want job opportunities for people with disabilities. And don’t get me started on how much I DON’T want to live in a country ruled by all white MEN. Because fellas, you’ve had your chance, and you fecked it up. Over and over and over. I want diversity. Equality. Inclusion.

8. Japanese beetles stink if you squash them, but they also eat scaly mites on my orchids. There is BALANCE on this planet. If we don’t protect the earth, and the life she harbors (not just stop our willful destruction but reverse the damage we’ve already done) #s 1-7 won’t matter. At that point, you can either buy a ticket on the rocket (the minuscule number of you who can afford it, and only if Elania can fix that pesky explosion thing), or you kiss the whole thing goodbye.

Ray and I lead a pretty cushy life. We’re extraordinarily lucky, I know that. But the constant stress many of us are feeling due to the uncertainty, lack of empathy, downright cruelty, and arbitrariness of the current U.S. administration will take its toll on physical and mental health if it continues. That stress will cause people to turn inward, turn away from each other at best, and to turn on each other at worst. Now imagine if, on top of all that, you ALSO had to worry about finding enough food, shelter, and clean water, being deported, or personal safety for yourself and/or your family.

So yeah, spring should be the glorious season of rebirth and renewal. But this year so far, most of the green is around my gills.