After my mother’s death,
days after the veil between
worlds once again closed,
leaving me to the details
of a life stopped in motion,
I enter her home,
see the desk with her pen
lying on the green blotter,
next to a stack of unpaid bills
ready for her signature.
I look toward the kitchen
as she left it, a jumble of paper recipes,
notes she made for groceries, reminders,
all waiting for her return—her hand, in the
making of caramel rolls or an apple pie.
I walk down the hall
past the family photos, the ancestors
long buried in clay soil
back on the 40 acre “Heartbreak Farm”
as it was later called.
I enter her bedroom,
see the rose colored walls,
move into her private bathroom,
open a drawer, and that is when
a tear drops, and with an
intake of breath
and release, the tears flow.
I hold her toothbrush, then touch
the earrings resting on the stone counter—
the intimate details of a life.
I smell her in this space, not
a flowery presence, more of powder—
a scent of living, cleansing, of hope, and
one I want to cling to like the scent on the
yellow blanket that became a shroud, when
I held my week-old daughter,
and carried her back to the hospital
as she died in my arms.
A scent I then wanted to embrace,
until the day I
set it down and believed in
my one next step of living.
(Image from artist collection)“Love is in the sensual details.”
Lebo Grand
“In a relationship the details are everything because they remind you – just when you need to be reminded the most – why you fell in love with someone in the first place.”
Mike Gayle, His ‘N’ Hers
“Life is not a plot; it’s in the details.”
Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts
Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind
- The Gene Keys: Emracing Your Higher Purpose by Riuchard Rudd
- Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Inform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
- A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
- Energy Speaks: Messages from Spirit on Living, Loving, and Awakening by Lee Harris
- Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create an New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
- The Women by Kristin Hannah
- Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme
- The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
- Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
- God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Mirabai Starr
- The Four Agreements: A Toltec Book of Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz
- Mindfulness and Grief by Heather Stang
- How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chödron
- The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Eknath Easwaran
- St Francis of Assisi: Brother of Creation by Mirabai Starr
- Wild Wisdom Edited by Neil Douglas-Klotz
- Earth Prayers From Around The World, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
- The Tao of Relationships by Ray Grigg
- Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
- Unconditional Love and Forgiveness by Edith R. Stauffer, Ph.D.
- Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph M. Marshall III
- Art & Fear by David Bayless & Ted Orland
- Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon
- The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel, PhD
- The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
- Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
- Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living by Janis Amatuzio
- Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
- Violence & Compassion by His Holiness the Dahlai Lama
- Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
- Devotions by Mary Oliver
- To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
- Meditations From the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
- The House of Belonging: poems by David Whyte
- Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
- Soul an Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
- A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield
- Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
- I Sit Listening to the Wind by Judith Duerk
- Dancing Moons by Nancy Wood
- The Soul of Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks
- Keep Going by Joseph M. Marshall III
- Arriving at your own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
- The Hidden Secrets of Water by Paolo Consigli
- Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran
- Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
- Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
- I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown
- Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron
- When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
- On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
- Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine
- Joy in Loving, Mother Theresa
- The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
- Let Your LIfe Speak by Parker Palmer
- Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
- The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
- Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chodron
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways Of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson