My immense thanks for so much kindness and light sent my way this week…. It’s meant the world to me.
When my daughters were in a sweet little Waldorf nursery school, around this time every year the children made lanterns from canning jars covered with colored tissue paper. The whole school gathered for a vegetable stone soup and then set out for a walk with the lanterns. This is rural Vermont, remember; the nursery school was surrounded by forest and the deep night, and parents carried lighters and matches to relight anyone’s lantern that was snuffed out. In the dark, stumbling a bit, we walked, singing.
Martinmas. I was tugged right into the Waldorf world with its heady folklore and mummers plays, the stories within stories, my natural bent of mind.
A week into the cancer world, veritable novice, walking on November 11, I was thinking of all these powerful layers — Martinmas and Armistice Day and Veterans Day (after WWII and the Korean War) — and the hidden interconnectedness of so many things, String Theory, the magical enchantment of books with stories that seem disconnected and then — whoosh! — are magically revealed at the end.
Maybe this is only my own way of thinking of things, but this uninvited and unwanted cancer that has now joined my body and story could hardly be random. Here I am, on the edge of a journey of indeterminate length, still looking to put these hard pieces together.
And for November, with her lovely gloaming light, a few lines from Adrienne Rich:
… You’re what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could beginHow you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment…
Stony Soil Vermont 
All good wishes.
Gwen.
Many thanks!
Wishing you all the best….
Sending you positive, healing thoughts.
i love the images of lantern light as you head into this dark path. Hope you have lots of folks with matches and flashlights for when you stumble.
Endearing thought… thank you!
Hi Brett, I’ve been reading your blog for a while now. Can’t remember how I found it exactly, but I keep coming back for the nuanced layers of what you notice in the world. I love how you weave the beauty of daily life in with the complexity of anger, grief, and darkness. As a future social worker, mother, woman, and lover of the world and of good writing, I’m thankful for you.
This line from your recent post captures where you are and where we all as a society well: “Here I am, on the edge of a journey of indeterminate length, still looking to put these hard pieces together.”
Thank you for showing up and giving voice to these complexities with grace and clarity.
Thank you so much for reading my blog — and especially for taking the time to write this. Best wishes for your own journey. 🌻
You will be in my heart for this journey. I hope you continue to write… I found that amid the fear and illness, deep wisdom and peace kept surprising me. Your words here reflect that same insight. Thank you.
So many writers have written through terrible illnesses…. I intend to do the same. And thank you.