Author: Melody Harrison Hanson

I’m an overthinker and incessant seeker. I’m grateful for God’s grace. I write poetic thoughts and offer original photographs. I hope you will stay and read for a while. All photography and words are mine unless noted.

Going Quietly Sane

How hard can it be? Some days, too hard.

As you crawl back into bed, pleading with the universe,

To make it all disappear.

You can’t drink away your fear and so,

You choose sleep. It’s the only option,

When you must make your mind stop.

Furtive thoughts, disbelieving truths, you are

Just plain scared. And of what?

Your heart races from thinking too much.

Hands shaky. Breathing in, out. Counting down, 100, 99, …

To slow down your heart,

Your head whispers lies.

You lay there for an unknowable amount of time,

Moments lost forever.

Irretrievable.

Just Gone. And at a certain point you realize that

The panic that quietly stole your day — the lies

From the pit of your heart are untrue.

After incalculable hours lost, never to be retrieved

You get up. You paint your face,

Coif your hair.

You put on pink, the happy color,

The disguise. Just imagine yourself strong.

10/23/08 MHH

My Mother’s Love

My Mother’s love is like no other.
It affirms; its power is profound.
In my mother’s arms
the child in me feels safe.

My Mother’s love is like no other.
It wounds; its hold like a vice;
The power my Mother holds,
wounds the girl in me,
and strangles
the woman I will become.

My Mother’s love
holds the child in me
in a place I want to escape.
I am safe and yet
caught,
strangled by ancient, overgrown vines.

Who am I?
My
Mother’s
Love.

by Melody Hanson, 2004

Madness! My Brain on Recession

It is also what my brain feels like today.  I’m starting to really have a pit in my stomach about the state of the economy, every day I am aware of the cost of the most basic things.  I just feel down by it all, dragged down.  It is all madness!

(These are trees really played around with in a program called Picnik. )

I Fear the Pain of Wanting

Sometimes I want,
Want so hard I fear it will break me in two.
What I want hurts inside, not because
I can’t have it … but,
Because the wanting,
Waiting, anticipating fills me up so full that I know I will burst.
I explode with the knowledge of it.
The pain is liquid fear,
Need rushing through me, pulsing, crushing
Flooding into all that I know to be true.

Sometimes when I know, with certainty,
I just know that I cannot have what I want,
I fear the pain of wanting.
The empty place inside so full of longing.
I fear it because a longing that deep, that clear,
Will only hurt.
Hurt for so long that what I know, what is goodness and truth,
What will be there, with certainty continuously
Begins to take on a quality of something else.
Endless, my longing and my reality go on and on, intertwining.
Sometimes, when I think of what I want,
I hate myself.

Sometimes wanting is enough
To remind me that I am still alive.
But other times, wanting is enough to curl me up,
Curl me up into a tomb-like, cold, scary place
Where I am suffocated by my own
Wanting.

melody harrison hanson, june, 2007

Music Makes Kids Smart

The policies of George W. have forced many cuts to local school budgets over the last eight years.

One cut  we have felt is that 4th graders at our elementary school can no longer learn a string instrument until 5th and they may cut the Strings Program all together.

Emma is in fifth. Since third grade she’s taken the standardized tests required by George W, which tell us what we already knew, she’s extremely intelligent.

Someone should tell old Dubya, that study after study has shown that learning music can make kids smarter.

When your child learns to play a musical instrument, not only does he learn how to make tunes, but he also enhances other capabilities of his brain as well:

* A 10 year study involving 25,000 students show that music-making improves test scores in standardized tests, as well as in reading proficiency exams (Source: James Catterall, UCLA, 1997).
* High school music students score higher on the math and verbal portion of SAT, compared to their peers (Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, The College Board, compiled by Music Educators Conference, 2001).
* The IQ’s of young students who had nine months of weekly training in piano or voice rose nearly three points more than their untrained peers (Study by E. Glenn Schellenberg, of the University of Toronto at Mississauga, 2004.)
* Piano students can understand mathematical and scientific concepts more readily. Children who received piano training performed 34 percent higher on tests measuring proportional reasoning – ratios, fractions, proportions, and thinking in space and time (Neurological Research, 1997).
* Pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly in students who were given a 3-year piano instruction (Dr. Eugenia Costa-Giomi study presented at the meeting of the Music Educators National Conference, Phoenix, AZ, 1998).
* Music students received more academic honors and awards than non-music students. These music students also have more A and B grades compared to non-music students (National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 First Follow-Up, U.S. Department of Education).
* More music majors who applied for medical school were admitted compared to those in other majors including English, biology, chemistry and math. (“The Comparative Academic Abilites of Students in Education and in Other Areas of a Multi-focus University,” Peter H. Wood, ERIC Document No. ED327480; “The Case for Music in Schools”, Phi Delta Kappan, 1994)

Other research also linked music making with increased language discrimination and development, improved school grades, and better-adjusted social behavior.  Why does this happen? What is at work here?  and why is George Dubya making decisions that force cutting music programs around the country?

Why Dubya, why???

The Place of Nowhere

I wish I were a drinker.
My thirst is an itching wound; an irritation, a constant need. My albatross.
It will remain; a heavy calling. Uncomfortable.  I long for satiation, even as I am arguing against it.
Ice cold, tart, sublime. It will fill me up. Cradling my heart,
that beats too fast;
I want the panic to recede, and so, for a moment I submit to its tender lies, so gently disguised.
The thirst of a drinker, remains. It calls to me. But it is not my calling.
It lies and tells me it is but a moment; infrequent, even good.
It utters frantic, believable thoughts. Yes, believable. You can. You want. You deserve. Your heart is dry as a bone.
Your need is great.
Lingering, it hangs like the moon in the daytime sky.
Calling, enticing, bewitching. A constant source of light.
Beautiful, as it lures me back to that place of forgetting.
I wish I were a drinker, because I will always thirst.
But then I remember what is so easily forgotten,
The lack.
The Emptiness.
The place of Nowhere.
Even still, I long for it.It caresses me, it lures.
The seduction of a drinker is constant.
10/17/08 MHH

Five and a half years I have known that I am an alcoholic – most of five, of which I was unable to face the truth. In that time I have studied the disease and I came to face with the truth that this thing,that is my albatross, although difficult is just that ‘a thing.’  And we all have Things. Mine, yes, is tragic at least to me.  I mean how pathetic that I can’t drink. I love drinking. I really do.  It’s fun. It’s is social. It brings people together. It’s ‘normal.’ Yup, those are the more subtle lies (for me).

Anyway, I guess I just need to say that although I have felt a great deal of shame, that is no longer true. Yes, alcohol had me it its grip, but no longer. I feel freer than ever in my life. And although it does call me, whispering in my ear, seductively at times, I just tell it to shut up! Seriously I am reduced to telling the Liar in my head to shut the fuck up!

I have been sober, since July 2008, and almost daily I remind myself that my life IS worth living —  covering up is weak, feelings are important, and most of all my children and husband need me!  May it always be so that I listen to that strength inside that help me shut out the lure of being a drinker.

Ten Things I Gave Up Because of the Recession

Ten things I gave up because of the Recession  … Not in order of importance.

  1. Coffee shops. Though I still drink good coffee at home, I no longer get that when I am out and about.
  2. Book Stores. My husband swears I could read for about two years (or longer) on the books I currently own, but I have given up purchasing books.  That’s a compulsion that is hard to change but important.
  3. Sentry grocery store. I love the beautiful atmosphere including classical music, but I’ve given it up for the prices at Woodmans and Trader Joes.  And frankly, I don’t miss seeing wine on every corner associated with all the good food I like.
  4. Shopping. I no longer shop for ‘entertainment.’  Okay, don’t judge.  It is something that I enjoy(ed.)
  5. Eating out. We just don’t do it.  Before it was a way to stave off boredom, an anecdote for laziness, and somehow a ‘reward.’
  6. Cambodia. Enough said.
  7. Our Dishwasher. It broke, burning out in a blaze of glory and it won’t be replaced for a while.
  8. Furniture in our Living Room. Our cat George has issues related to peeing and we’ve lost furniture, rugs, pillows all because of it.  They won’t be replaced for a very long time.
  9. Gourmet cheeses. Yummmmm.  The older the better.  Stick to grocer Sharp Cheddar.  Oddly difficult for me.
  10. Canceling magazine subscriptions that we don’t read, except PASTE magazine, which is awesome and you get a CD of cool new music each month.  (By the way, no more CD purchases, dearest Tom.  We have to stop!)

On the short list for what’s next: Piano tuning. It hasn’t been tuned for three years and it won’t be this winter. Vacations & travel of any kind.  We’re considering cutting Cable although we’ve had ongoing family debates.  The faux Persian rug in our den will not be cleaned.  I’ve been thinking of giving up red meat anyway, because my bad cholesteral is high, but it’s also pricey!

What have you given up if anything?  It doesn’t have to be a neat TEN.  It is interesting how our priorities change as we deal with the prices at the grochery store and the pump.

Advent Conspiracy

The thought of not spending so much money at Christmas is both terrifying and freeing!  I have long felt that Christmas has lost its meaning and, as a parent, I want my children to “get” what Christmas is really about.  Take Easter, for example, with the bunnies, the baskets, and the candy. I have never participated, with adamant resolve; that’s just not what Easter is about.  And so my kids “suffer” because of my decision – or at least that’s what it feels like as a parent.  Still, it seems that Easter is easier to “opt out of” than Christmas.

Over the last few years, we have sometimes asked extended family to give gifts to worthy organizations rather than directly to us.  I felt really strange asking – kind of self-righteous – although that was not my intent.  But it felt like a good direction, a small step, a reminder to us all that our ‘gift giving’ is often in excess and begins to lack meaning.

When it comes to the stereotypical traditions of an American Christmas, I am afraid this Conspiracy idea will be complex and difficult to process.  In my heart of hearts, I am excited.  But in reality, it is hard to imagine.  I look forward to learning more about the Conspiracy and how we can teach our children (and ourselves) more about these values and ideas.  I think my children, if they really understood how Jesus would celebrate Christmas, would actually come along more quickly than I.

I’ve been reading and studying the book of Daniel through a Beth Moore study, and was hit hard by the truth there in the first chapter about Babylonia which represents a culture that idolizes youth, beauty, intelligence and complete over-indulgence and over-abundance.  Sound familiar? The Enemy wants to keep us in the place of captivity, surrounded by all the temptations of the world, but as we succumb we will lose our identity and integrity.  “Daniel purposed with his heart” against those temptations. (Dan 1:8)

I must ask myself how much of the culture is getting to me?  We are supposed to make a mark for the Kingdom of God.  And yet, most of what I buy, eat, and watch encourages the corruption of our culture in my life, tempting me to believe that it’s actually all about me. Isaiah 47:8 says “I am, and there is none besides me.”  To me, this challenges our culture of total self-absorption.

To bring it back around to the Advent season and the idea the Conspiracy is challenging us with, let us all pray that God would soften our hearts and harden our resolve to live differently.  May we each be open to the ideas here and be willing to be challenged in big ways – not so that we alienate ourselves from the world around us (which is what I fear), but so that we would be open to the Holy Spirit and be able to live differently IN the world as opposed to withdraw into our strange theologies that separate and divide.

I look forward with anticipation to what God is going to do in my husband and me and in our precious children as we face our addiction to stuff and prayerfully become deliberate about our Advent choices.  I am so grateful to attend a church that is being prophetic about these issues.

This is something I wrote for my church’s blog.

Albert Einstein and Naming My Blog

I like Albert Einstein.  Of course he was brilliant and quirky, with that crazy hair! But did you know he was a person of faith? I love that he thought for himself (well duh, with relativity and all.)  But he had a real contempt for authority.  Question everything he said. I love that!!

But I especially liked learning that he was slow to develop verbally.  Our youngest was as well. And Einstein thought that his verbal challenges allowed him “… to observe with wonder the everyday phenomena that others took for granted.”

Jacob’s language challenge has been something I have known about and worked to get help for, since he was eighteen months old (I will write about that some day).  I am inspired and filled with hope for my son, learned to speak slowly and who by everyone’s estimation is “delayed” academically.  It all stems from some things doctors have recently identified.  Perhaps Jacob will also learn to see the world differently as he makes his way in it.

“There is no limit to life, when your imagination and mind are vivid and developing.”

This gives me hope.

As a child Einstein “was so fervent about his beliefs that on his own he composed  hymns, which he sang to himself as he walked home from school.”  Lovely!  We like to compose music in our household!  (My kids have a band Squirrel Ticks.  Have you heard them?  I should post a few songs here.)

At age 12, just as he would have readied for his Bar Mitzvah, Einstein suddenly gave up Judaism which he had practiced on his own up to then as his parents rejected the Jewish traditions. As he later put it,

“The religious inclination lies in the dim consciousness that dwells in humans that all nature, including the humans in it, is in no way an accidental game, but a work of lawfulness, that there is a fundamental cause of all existence.”

Einstein did retain from his childhood religious experiences a profound faith in, and reverence for the harmony and beauty of the mind of God expressed in the creation of the universe. In his 50s, Einstein rethought his faith, as he did many times over his lifetime, based on what he called the “spirit manifest in the laws of the universe” and a sincere belief in a “God who reveals Himself in the harmony of all that exists.”

Do you believe in God he was asked?

“I’m not an atheist. I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.”

Do you accept the historical existence of Jesus?

“Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word.  No myth is filled with such life.”

I’m intrigued with how he thought, how he “worked” at his faith, how he was impressed by the lavishness of the Creator and of the person of Jesus Christ.

And I love this: “… the most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious…” I am in so much agreement!  And it is Einstein’s words that were the inspiration for the name of this blog and that echo my own heart as to the mystery of faith, belief or disbelief, science and much of life.

If you’re interested in subscribing to this blog, thank you!  I can’t say how often I will write.  And my musings are quite random and tend to depend greatly on the family schedule.  Thank you for reading and please, leave a comment or opinion!!!  I’d love to hear from you.

Quotations from a TIME.com article on Albert Einstein.  Read the complete article here.

Phantom Love

You can’t just say you love me. Love isn’t words.
Love is time — spent over the span of a life.
Words are a phantom love.

I can’t mend your hurting heart.
I don’t even know why I should try.
Empty, adrift. You are searching for something.
Crying out, and I hear you.
But I cannot help.

You can’t just say I’m sorry.

Love is known through a lifetime of being, searching, knowing.
Love is acceptance. Endurance. Forgiveness.
Each of these is evident — if you love.

What is it that I am to you?
Do you feel you cannot provide for me the things I crave?
I am fully aware and accepting, that I am the woman you both shaped over time.
Strong. Capable. Faithful.
Afraid. Careful. Wounded.

You don’t have to heal me, that task is all mine.
All you have to do is BE,
with me,
in my life.

You can’t just say you love me – show me, you don’t regret, that I am.

Show me.
Just be.
With me.

 

 

(May 21, 2008)

Reaching

Daddy, I reach up with my whole heart and gaze at you,
eyes widened, eager; wishing for your arm hanging there happenstance.
I am filled with hope and I itch
for you to hold my hand.
I linger, waiting, with another glance up at you.
Will you look down, will you grab my hand
a sudden tenderness?

Or will life pull you on toward the rush that ‘doing’ brings?

I planted a Cherry tree in memory of my father. He died five years ago May 19th. This is the first year I’ve gotten a few blooms, because I don’t prune it correctly.  I was always emotionally “reaching” for something from my dad, that infrequently came, whether it was holding my hand or just unscheduled time.
June 4, 2008

Dreaming in Color

Dreaming in Color

Am I comfortably settled or am I stuck?  When was the last time I dreamt in full color?  Of things long forgotten  —  Of pulse pounding, scary, risky things?   Am I fully awake?   I used to love the smells, sights, and sounds of Different. Am I sure that this life right in front of me is the one I was meant to live?  I am blown by forces stronger than myself.  I am carried on the wind into a future I cannot not smell, or see or hear.

I woke up and my dreams today is are so good. I am frantic to see it, to record it and to somehow divine the world Out There.

It may become too unsettling, upsetting, and disjointed for a family to endure.  It may be selfish.  It may ignore the good places in my life  that I have forged with utilitarian sacrifice; sweat and tears given willingly yet with a price.  My past, my here – and – now is settled, sometimes stuck, but known and understood.  Am I fully alive, if I can not manage to live my Dreams alongside the steady pulse of Love that fills my life every day? Surrounding me. It protects me.  And covers me, and I lose myself.

I can breathe, so I must be alive, but I feel stifled by the collision of my Dreams and every day realities.  I am alive, but I grow cautious and ever more afraid like dreaming is dangerous.  Am I more afraid — to fly — or to fail? Am – I- settled- or- am- I- stuck?  Am I fully alive?

I breathe therefore I Am. But what then?

August 25, 2008

This is a poem about being female, and 41 and a mother. Having left my career for years of motherhood, I was still dreaming of things that I could only imagine. I fear my dreams and yet hope for, wish for and want to have it all.