WANTING (a new poem to be read aloud after a deep inhalation)

                        

Wanting 

                                            by S. L. Lipson                                

     I am sick of mediocrity

     and superficiality 

     and damn conditionality 

        rewarded by society,

        more so than humble piety

        or dignified sobriety,

     or earnest dedication,

     while valuable education

     is devalued in this nation,

        and money is equated

        with all that’s highly rated 

        by teachers who have stated

     that they define what’s best

     with mere numbers on a test,

     scores higher than the rest,

        as if that is a measure 

        of what we all should treasure

        over intangible pleasure—

     like laughter shared with friends,

     warm hugs that make amends, 

     mere awareness that transcends

        the tangible into gratitude,

        becoming a blessed attitude;

        and this is no mere platitude!

            It’s a call to all to reassess

            the key to peace and happiness:

            to value more while wanting less.

"To be is to stand for."

            "To be is to stand for." --Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

          Too many people have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the misguided, clearly unsuccessful strategy for safe coexistence with “others:” the purely reactive approach of standing up to haters, standing with victims, and standing against injustice. We see protesters reacting to acts of hatred with defiant superiority (“standing up to haters”), and neighbors reacting with “misery-loves-company” sympathy (“standing with victims”) or self-righteous outrage after someone’s persecution (“standing against injustice”). But this reactive approach is like fire-fighting with individual fire extinguishers in the wake of troops of flying arsonists, while complaining about the reckless abandonment of so much combustible material along the arsonists’ paths. Perhaps it is high time we that implement a proactive approach to preventing conflagrations, to replace the reactive approach to hatred, by focusing on what we stand for—our ideals, our morals—and modeling those ideals. 

          I read this morning that a long-time Republican party official publicly stood for his own beliefs by renouncing his membership in the Republican Party and joining the Democrats. Here is the first of a long tweet  thread from Steve Schmidt, the former campaign manager for John McCain:

29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.

11:41 PM - Jun 19, 2018

https://www.newsweek.com/former-mccain-campaign-manager-leaves-republican-party-985854

Notice he used the phrase "stand FOR"? This is what we need, more of this. We must all decided who we are, what we stand for. We must raise kids who know what they stand for. We must never forget what we stand for just to stand with others who misrepresent our values and use their power to control us, or just to stand against those who have opposed us in petty politics. Politics are not life. Life is bigger than petty power struggles. Leadership means standing FOR principles. I admire Steve Schmidt. 

Ego and Entitlement: The Source of Social Ills

Do you ever stop to think about how EGO is the force behind all social dysfunction, aggression, and injustice? The attitude of entitlement--stemming from ego--leads to all forms of "supremacy" that make one person feel justified in dominating another. I saw evidence of egotistical entitlement in action today....

I was driving through a grocery store parking lot, and stopped to let a woman cross in front of me to get to her car. I waved her onward, and she smiled appreciatively and waved back--and our shared moment of respect between stranger-neighbors made me smile. Then another woman marched in front of my car, imperiously raising her hand at me with an expression that said, "You wait for ME now!" She flashed no smile, and gave me no nod or wave; she didn't even make eye contact with me. That display of entitlement sickened me. I shook my head and drove onward, passing by a shopping cart left in the middle of a space, just a few feet away from the cart corral. More entitlement...

Now that I'm sitting at my computer, I'm wondering whether I should have called out, "You're welcome!" But that would have been egotistical on my part, and passive-aggressive. Or, should I have called out, "Ma'am, no one owes you anything. You could at least smile at me for stopping"? Or, should I have simply come home and written about the experience here, hoping that someone reads these words and offers a smile of appreciation today for a stranger's simple act of kindness, to mitigate the ripple effects of entitled attitudes on society?

#NationalPoetryMonth

          #NationalPoetryMonth inspires me to add more poetry to both my own and my students' writing collections. So I use prompts with them that also move me to write what I assign. My students liked this, and I hope you will, too.

Inner Riot

(inspired by the poem "Harlem," by Langston Hughes)

by Susan L. Lipson

What happens to social outrage,

never acted upon?

Does it whirl around like a funnel cloud,

in search of captives to uplift and transport,

Or does it hover indecisively,

Then get blown out to sea?

Does it spark like twigs and logs,

carefully stacked and lit,

Or choke like embers

smothered by handfuls of sand?

Maybe it just gets buried,

like nuclear waste?

Or does it burn like a city set ablaze by rioters?

Bittersweet Truths for Writers Who Strive To Share Memorable Words

From my years of writing words intended for many more eyes and hearts than they often reach, I have synthesized the following bittersweet truths and guidelines for myself, as well as for fellow writers:


1) Exasperation over sometimes absurdly long delays in artistic gratification may be part of a bigger plan for eventual success, in which time is irrelevant. Write memorable words and they will be remembered, even if not within the time frame you desire. 

2) Expectations of others' reactions to your words can hinder your openness to hearing those reactions. Listening does not guarantee hearing any more than looking guarantees seeing. Remove your filters--the expectations--and take time to process feedback without simultaneously qualifying its relevance. 

3) There is no such thing as a definitive "final draft." The author must settle on defining "final" in terms of a work's readiness to move others without further revisions--and the author's readiness to move on to another project.

4) Your words are yours to hatch and nurture, no matter how long they have to sit in a journal, a computer file, or your mind; consider them as germinating, not wasting away. 

5) Some obscure comments from editors make sense in their own time, via epiphanies visible only to eyes freshened by time away from a manuscript. Celebrate each realization with a zealous revision and a self-congratulatory hug for your progress.

6) Treasure all comments about how your words moved a reader, even if those words only appeared on a post you wrote on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog. The point is to move people, and if your public works evoke written responses, even negative ones, you have succeeded in evoking emotions and inspiring others to write.

Transitional Moments Captured in Poetry: A Few New Poems by Yours Truly

First, a poem about so many people I know, facing new physical limitations, forced job changes, or abrupt endings to life as they knew it....


Transition 

By Susan L. Lipson                                                      

                                             

"Well, I used to be a..."

He pauses.

Hearing his own regrets

in casual conversation 
sparks an epiphany:

Time to BE,

who he is now.

Time to accept

and roll onward--

forward.

And now a personal poem, about becoming an "empty nester":

Tides of Change

By Susan L. Lipson

Sometimes a wave hits me,

knocks me over with a question:

Is this really not temporary--

are my kids really not coming home to live with me again?

And I think I might drown in my lonely cup of coffee,

at a table meant for five.

But then, into my paddling hands, float lovely seashells:

a phone message, a text, an email

from one of them,

and my buoyancy returns

to keep me afloat.

And finally, a poem based on my first published poem, about a shocking moment in the life of a new doctor--a poem featuring a few simultaneous transitions, colored by irony:

Manicure

Unscrewing the top of the bottle of nail polish,

Aachooing from the odor of the “Pink Pearl” liquid,

Eschewing her desire to paint her left hand first with her steadier right fingers,

Renewing the brightness of her thick, yellowed nails,

Undoing the ancient look of her wrinkled hands,

Subduing the wave of wistfulness she feels about her once lovely skin,

Imbuing every stroke with a feeling of accomplishment,

Reviewing the accuracy of her colorful coverage,

Redoing the nails that show thin spots,

Pursuing beauty until…

 she dies, and a medical student begins

Undoing it all with a scalpel:

Dissecting the withered hands,

Inspecting the bones, tendons, and ligaments of his live model,

Protecting the structure to keep it intact as he is

Detecting the actual parts that were mere terminology until now;

Respecting the complexity of this appendage, while

Rejecting the sight of the chipping pink nail polish to keep it from

Affecting his composure by

Connecting this hand to an old woman, who only weeks ago, was

Selecting this pink color to paint over her nails, and never

Suspecting that the color would outlive her—No!

Correcting his use of her to it in his mind,

Electing to ignore the one sign of humanness that remains, and

Reflecting on that irony.

 The transition of one of my favorite children's authors, Natalie Babbitt, whose writing days ended forever a couple of days ago, made me feel contemplative today. Words left in others' memories carve out our place on this planet better than any tombstone markers.

Underappreciated Resource for Fiction Writers

How The Bible Can Help Build Character—Fictional Ones, That Is…

If you want to study how to write multidimensional, realistically imperfect characters, with complex backstories and universally recognized flaws and attributes, look no further than the Hebrew Bible. Show me a flawless hero in the Five Books of Moses—I challenge you. And show me a reader of the Bible who can’t identify with at least one person depicted there, in some compelling, and possibly life-changing way.

Why, one might wonder, is a book designed to teach and serve as Law, replete with flawed examples of humanity? Some Bible readers would say that such questions are moot, applicable only to fiction; they would assert that the people of the Bible are not “characters,” but ancestors—real people—and they must be portrayed truthfully because the Bible is nonfiction, a historical record. Others, who read the Bible as historical fiction, might argue that the omniscient narrator point-of-view of realistically flawed characters allows readers to decide, based on their own perspectives, which characters to connect with as they read, and also to find new connections with each rereading as their own perspectives about life evolve over time. In either case, some readers might complain that it’s difficult to feel connected to, or even sympathetic toward, characters we would only emulate by being the opposite of them. I would point out to such readers that all of us read stories, in a way, to find and define ourselves, and every person can find aspects of their own character within the ultimate compendium of human traits known as the Bible.

• If I want to portray a story of a nonconformist who follows only the supernatural stirrings within his own heart and soul, defying social norms to do so, because he knows somehow that he is right about society’s need for a new way of thinking, I need only study the story of Abraham. 

• To create a complex tale of deception and extortion among family or friends, I can find material within the biblical scenes about blind Isaac; his scheming son, Jacob; his impulsive son, Esau; and their manipulative mother, Rebecca. 

• For a novel centered on dangerous sibling rivalry that almost destroys a family and alters society itself, I could find source material in the ancient stories of Jacob and his twelve sons. 

• To portray a boy whose deep friendship with another boy is gossiped about as “gay,” a boy who stands up for his friendship even if it means challenging authority, I need to study the Bible story of David and Jonathan—the original “bromance.” 

• If I want to share a story of an outcast, morally corrupt young woman who redeems herself by risking her life for the sake of a greater social good, I can study the tale of Rahab, the prostitute, who saved a city from complete destruction. 

• If I want to create a political tale of a paradoxically noble, yet self-centered leader whose downfall seems to be an addiction to sex, I could borrow from the story of King David (not to mention some recent historical figures).

• And if I decide to depict a story of a boy with psychic gifts, good looks, and charisma, a boy who evokes as much bitter envy as he does awe, a boy who becomes victimized by the ones meant to protect him, and then uses his gifts to reverse his fortune change the world, that’s the story of Joseph, son of Rachel and Jacob.  

Etcetera… You get the idea. The archetypes of most multidimensional characters have already appeared in the world’s best-selling, longest-existing collection of tales of humanity. The bible is not just for religious study; it’s not just about laws and wars and punishments; it’s not just about obedience to God and warnings about defiance of commandments; the bible is the fountainhead of all humanity-based writing. Amen!

A Poem About How Assumptions Inform Perspectives

View from a Different Bench                 

By Susan L. Lipson

He sits on a bench in the mall,                            

Eyeing passersby,

Unaware of my spying

From another bench, across the hallway lined with shops.

His gaze scorches a snapping, young mother

Who is berating her crying toddler,

Slapping her tiny hands as they grab at her mommy’s thighs,

Shushing the child as she begs to be picked up.

I see an invisible speech bubble above the watching man,

And in it the words: Pick up your baby, you ingrate!

Some of us would give anything to be blessed with a child!

You don’t deserve to be a mother!

Yes, I agree! I say to myself,

Missing my days with my crying toddlers,

Imagining myself sitting on the bench beside him,

Sharing our feelings,

Connecting with this stranger through our mutual love for children.

And then I hear him bellow from his bench

At the unappreciative mom:

“Can’t you make your kid shut up?!

Some of us are trying to enjoy a peaceful day here!”

Some of us.

Opportunity Doesn't Have To Knock if You Give It the Key

          The mistake that most of us make in life, the biggest missed opportunity, is in seeing every day as a continuation of the day that preceded it. The "here I go again" attitude that so many of us have as we boot up our computers each day, or check in at the office, or pick up the phone to utter the same business-like greeting, or paste on a smile for a customer/client, is the attitude that also makes us feel as though sleep were but a short interruption in the same loooooong work day. "Same old, same old," too many say, shrugging, when asked, "So what's new with you?" 

          We ought to view each day as a new beginning, a new opportunity to make our mark, to change our path, to find new opportunities and goals. We need not continue where we left off yesterday just because we spent yesterday pursuing goals that no longer apply today. Finishing a pursuit is not necessarily synonymous with personal fulfillment; sometimes we finish merely out of compulsion to follow through, as an end in itself. Persistence is an attribute only when one persists passionately, not perfunctorily. 

          The point is, we can change course at any time as we grow our selves to our highest potential, and we MUST change course when others, or obstacles, hinder our progress. We cannot rely on repetition alone in striving for excellence; we must willfully deviate from our patterns to enhance innovation and passion, and to force ourselves to see the newness and growth potential in each new day.