Tag: poem

Skirting the Edge of Safety

by Deb Sinness

I want to talk about the things I love…
an overcast day on the bay filled with colorful kayaks,
each carving a path
to meet in the middle,
separate yet unified
in seeking a record.

Snow crunching beneath fat tires
careening through the trees
losing control,
my balance impaired
falling in the deep, soft snow.

Exploring unseen lands,
hiking to the edge of the
circle where birds perch,
as if they own the land.

Tubing out of control down
a slick snow-covered mountain.
The rubber I grip guides me to
safety but reminds me,
safety is not what I seek…
Go now.

Writing As Art

Writing Myself Home
I don’t know if I could
or even if I should
dig through the debris
of buried memory
to get to the place
where I can face…
myself.

I wrote the above poem in the late 1990s and when I wrote it, I suspected it had to do with my mother’s mental illness and my fear it would happen to me. I had a good life with a husband who loved me and the daughter I’d always wanted, but something was always gnawing at me? I never felt satisfied, and my mother’s memory hung over my life like a grey cloud. I quit writing shortly after when work and family life took priority.

I came out to myself 12 years later. It would take another 6 years to come out of the “having a mentally ill mother” closet.

Last Fall after moving back to North Dakota, I read a call by the BisMan Writer’s Guild for a collaborative touring art show called The Art of Writing, sponsored in part by the North Dakota Art Gallery Association. Artists and writers were to submit samples and if an artist selected a piece of writing (or vice versa), they would create pieces of art inspired by the other’s work. I wanted to submit my poem, but it needed a title.

After having spent two years drafting, rewriting, excavating, and shaping my memoir, I realized the poem was a way to express what I could not. It was the beginning of “coming home” to myself. Then a year ago September I moved back to my home state of North Dakota. I literally and figuratively had come home, thus the title Writing Myself Home.

Today The Art of Writing touring show opens for a month at the James Memorial Art Center in Williston, North Dakota where I spent the first six years of my life. My poem, in word art, will appear with the piece of art created by the artist who was inspired by it.

An Artist’s Reception will be held on Friday, September 17th from 7:00 to 8:30 PM, one year from my first full day as a North Dakota resident again.

Life truly has come full circle.

A 2020 Look Back at Y2K

The first weekend in the new year, my daughter and I opened the time capsule we had buried at the dawn of the new millenium.

It’s funny the stories we tell ourselves. In a previous post about the time capsule, I described going to the cabin to bury it on New Year’s Eve. When we opened the time capsule, taped to the cover was a baggie with the letters we had written ourselves and a four page cover spread from the San Luis Obispo Tribune dated January 1, 2000. Unless they published early, we hadn’t gone to the cabin until New Year’s Day.

So what else was inside? Just as we remembered it, an old Sony cell phone we used for emergencies only. Note the handy quick reference card tucked inside the zippered case. But why didn’t we include the charger?

In a little box marked “Open Me First” was a whole lot of nothing, insignificant trinkets.

“Mom, why did we pack all this junk?”

“I have no idea. What were we thinking?”

There were some old CDs, a cassette tape, a program from a middle school play my daughter stage managed, our custom goth Christmas card, keychains, and Gidget the stuffed dog who was the ‘Yo Quiero Taco Bell’ mascot back in the day.

Most interesting were the letters we each wrote to our future selves. The past two months I’ve struggled with the reality that 20 years have gone by in the blink of an eye. It’s hard to wrap my head around all the changes that have occurred in the span of those years. Changes we could never have guessed would happen to us.

Then, there were the two poems that were published in Unity Magazine in 1999, the first sales of my fledgling writing career. My letter talked about finally knowing what I want to do with my life…be a writer. Eight months later we would move from California to Michigan. Then life got in the way. Finally, 19 years after I wrote that letter, I reconnected with my writer self and last year I had my marathon story published.

It’s taken me over a month to write this post because the reality that I may not be here in another 20 years has rendered me mute. The mean spirit of our current reality makes me ponder whether that’s a bad thing. On the other hand, I’m not going down without a fight.

When writing about my life at age 25 for an English 101 class at Mira Costa College, I wrote, “I want to pass hot-dogging down a ski slope when I’m in my 90s.” I thought maybe I could will my body to ignore the inevitable decline of aging. My arthritic joints tell me I’ve not been so lucky.

My letter included the following poem I wrote to my future self about aging:

Yield to the seasons of life.
Gracefully embrace the wisdom
of passing years, while ignoring
disappointments and regrets
in the past.

Be thankful and grateful
for all that you have
and all that you are.
For in the end,
memories are all
you have left.

A memorable moment ~
a memorable millenium ~
a wonderful life.

Some words from my letter have never been more true. My letter ended with “I’ve always been a late bloomer and only now am I coming into my own…I hope this finds you happy, healthy, and living your dream.”

I am indeed.

My Open Mic Moment

I stepped out of my comfort zone today. Ever since I saw Poet Will Langford perform at The Rally of Writers last year, I’ve wanted to do a poetry reading.

As luck would have it, today the same Lansing Poetry Group that put on yesterday’s workshop held an event with two amazing young poets. I put my name in the hopper for the Open Mic that followed.

I’m not gonna lie, listening to everyone waiting for my name to be picked was nerve-wracking. But I wanted to be heard. And I survived.

Now to work on calming the nerves so my voice doesn’t quiver.

Practice. Practice. Practice…for next time.