world of wonders 🌎

or: one year later

5: my mother’s friend made balloon animals in the backyard and I receive a purple blow-up chair perfectly sized to my body: I feel loved and like no one can hurt me.

9: seeing children with families together makes me realize a birthday is a marker of a chasm, an absence. I was born on a fault line.

13: my mother plans a scavenger hunt for my friends and me to feel as if time would stop and we would never leave each other, our wet pool hair curled in sleeping bags.

16: my father tells me I am not a woman without my period, my ovaries are not mature, wrapping me in a white cloth of shame. I peck myself apart.

20: I greet ritual in the high desert of New Mexico, jumping off cliffs, trusting my limbs to climb dusty white rock. I take the name willow.

22: a Buddhist nun on the island of Iona tells me there is no “thank you,” because there is no “me” or “you,” there is only inter-us. a kind stranger welds me a necklace with the stones of St. Columba.

25: I lose my grandmother, a house of belonging. I wear her smile when I get engaged and laugh and laugh by the water.

27: we practice our first dance in the grass of the front yard, singing Brandi under our breath, choosing ourselves and each other.

30: I believe in the wonder of wonders, this quiet knowing we are not alone, a honeysuckle vine taking root.

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Hello, friends! In the last year of my twenties, I cataloged a full year’s 365 photos of daily marvels. I hoped to train my eyes to see Spirit in the world. I found blueberry muffins, tender embraces after a heartache, friend reunions across time, a cup of tea that says all is not lost, abandoned protest signs, painted sunsets, forgiveness, and comfort in the recesses of my body. I collected photos that reminded me of joy. Poem Land has brought me joy, as have you. There is a teaching in Buddhism that we are all each other’s mothers over the many thousands of lifetimes. I celebrate all the ways we are born, and we die, and we come to be with each other, all the days of our bewildering lives.

This week’s writing prompt: Cataloging the last week, or month, what photos call you to joy? What memories are most prominent from your birthday of the past years? Where do you look to find wonder?

This week’s fun find: The Age of Pleasure 💜

See you soon in poem land,

Elizabeth

P.S. Want to share 3 words with me and I will write a poem? ✨

eye spy lots of Mr. B pics !