As the Holidays Approach--"How To Be Alone in Love"

As the holidays approach, I know many people will find all the loud, happy preparations and boisterous reminders difficult to bear because they will be missing someone they love because of breakups, divorce, family estrangements, deaths, or simply long distances combined with lack of money and/or time to travel. In addition, the holidays can be especially difficult for people who suffer from depression, even when they are surrounded by other people.

So for all too many people, these holidays of togetherness and joyous family get-togethers can be extremely lonely. Some people have told me they have found relief and comfort in one particular poem while at their lowest emotional states (in two cases, suicidal), so I'm posting that poem here today for everyone who's facing some sense of loss or loneliness as we approach Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or Yule.

NOTE: If you are depressed or have feelings or thoughts of harming yourself, please seek help. You can always call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

HOW TO BE ALONE IN LOVE

Hold fast, first.

Continue to give,

even when no one wants

what you offer. The power, the wonder

is in the giving.

Call yourself out of yourself,

shedding old skins.

Stripping bare to organ and bone,

open the heart’s vein

and give your blood. Commit

and continue to commit.

These choices are always yours.

Be love’s fool.

Become God’s.

He will understand.

He too loved immoderately.

Published in Heart's Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)

CHRISTMAS EVE MEDITATION WHILE WAITING TO PAY--A poem for Christmas

Happy Winter Holidays and Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it) to everyone who reads this!

This is a photo taken by Sue Wyatt Shinkle of Kansas City's famous Plaza lights at Christmas time right before a winter storm hit. When my kids lived in other states but came home for Christmas, they always said the sight of the Plaza lights let them know they were really home.

CHRISTMAS EVE MEDITATION WHILE WAITING TO PAY

Standing in shopping-center lines,

I remember last Christmas in your arms.

I dream your voice on the phone at midnight,

asking to come home,

how I will unlock the door

to admit you from the black cold

and hold you,

chilled and shaking from something

deeper than cold.

I dream you

on your knees, how I will

drop to my own and join you.

A tightmouthed woman behind me

jabs my back with a box corner,

and I step forward,

one person closer

to paying for what I want to give.

Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)