71. A Heart’s Survival

Part of me never expected to make it this far.
It was not a well-spent youth.
I danced too close to death three times.
Flirted with disaster a time or two.
Lived parts of my life with a target brightly printed on my back.
I am occasionally accused of wisdom,
but I question the accusations regularly,
and I should know.

I stumble into things.
Stumbled out of them. I seem to have made a practice
of testing God’s grace, which I have learned,
truly has no limits. He is full of surprises, that one.
I make plans. I do. God laughs. At times I laugh with him.

When I am wise enough to look, I understand
the gift of people placed in my life. They are everywhere,
even in places I may never touch,
but they touch me.
Small gifts. Kind words. Art.

Feelings come hard. Call it trauma.
Call it a weakness. My words of the heart
always seem to be behind the heart itself.
Everything I do is an attempt to catch up.
No wonder I am constantly surprised.

And I am. By beauty. By kindness.
By the cruelty and greed and harshness.
and the constant battle between good and greed,
by the things I can and cannot do. By the changes.
And most of all, by my heart’s survival.

About this poem.

Coming down the stairs to my office this morning, my eyes fall (as they often do) on the painting in the photograph.

Barbara Lashley is the artist. She and her husband Kirk were members of my church in Roanoke, Virginia, many years ago. Forty-some odd of them. While visiting one Saturday afternoon, she showed me her studio, which was in their garage. It was filled with paintings. Some were finished. Some were in progress.

I remember the moment like it was yesterday, when in reality it was forty-plus years ago. It was a new thought, that people were artists. Not just the great names in art, but people who lived regular lives. I know, it should not have been a new thought, but for me it was. I ended up buying the painting above. It is of olive groves in Spain, she told me.

I had never been to Spain at that point. In fact I had never been overseas at all. But the painting created a yearning in me. To see. To see new places. To see in new ways. Being slow to process feelings, I could not have told you what I was feeling at the time. I only knew it made me feel.

The painting cost me $55.00. For where I was at that point in my life, that was an outrageous amount of money. It turned out to be some of the best money I ever spent. It began rustlings in me that never left. I can trace my wanderlist to buying that picture, framing it and hanging it in every home I have had since. I can trace my evolution into and as an artist to that moment in Barbara’s studio.

It was an unexpected moment. And became part of what has been an unexpected life. Love and lost love. Success and collapse. Years of therapy. Moving. Traveling. Becoming. Watching the worst of moments push me to the best of my life.

I did not expect to see 71. Like the poem said, I have danced too close to death a few times. For someone who seeks to live such a quiet life, it has been an adventure.

So that is how my birthday started. Looking at that picture that hangs next to my desk. And then, triggered by the memories and feelings, I have spent the morning being both surprised and grateful for all the kind words that people have lavished on me via Facebook, email, notes, and words. It is overwhelming, both being alive still, able to feel wonder and love still, and the kindness of my friends. I could die right now (I have no intentions to), and I would die grateful.

And that too is unexpected.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom

PS – I spend the days before my birthdays thinking through the past year, and write about them. It’s a self-indulgence. Thank you for your tolerance.