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He Flew Away :: A fairytale.

This is an old, old story.

There once was a girl who fell in love,

in a moment; in a flash of conversation over the phone.

She fell down, down, down

into his deep, deep voice.

He was full of funny anecdotes. He was charming and open

and he kept calling

that girl.  She fell hard

for the man and his airplanes,

his funny stories and his strange lonely life.  And sometimes

when he wasn’t afraid,  he told her why  he was so very sad

and he held on to her so, so tight.

Why didn’t she know, oh why couldn’t she tell, then,

that the man would never let her in?

That she would be alone, in the end

strangled by his fear and her memories.

There once was a man that met a girl over the phone.

She made him smile and feel warm inside.  He was happy for a while.

And she waited patiently as he travelled the world.

Years of going away and coming back.  This girl, he knew

she was something else but he just couldn’t be sure.

Was it his daddy’s millions that she loved or was it him?

One day the man fell into a million pieces and called the girl.

Come, he cried, everything hurts and the walls are collapsing around me.

He wanted her.

And the girl, she came flying.  Her love made her try, try, try to glue him back together.  She gave it everything.

With her arms wrapped around, sitting there on a playground, a rush of love flooded

Through her.  She knew, for her, he was everything.

So she sat with the man and emotions swirled around, they talked and cried together.

And that girl, she just might have been

what his frightened heart needed, over time.  But  the man

closed up and went away more often.

Over time, he stopped calling.  Stopped needing

the girl.  Stopped wanting.

And though she saved her heart for him, he finally flew away and didn’t return.  And so, she

stood there frozen in time waiting, ever waiting.

But he never came.   There was nothing she could do.

This girl was something but he just couldn’t be sure.

Was it his daddy’s millions that she loved or him?

Not that time, but a hundred times

Again and again, he called her, she came to him, she held him, they laughed together,

And she cried all the way home.

Away the man flew perhaps for the last time.

Off she drove tears streaming.

How could she not have known, as he flew away over and over again —

That he would never let her in.

And one day, many years later, he would find a lady to trust.

And the girl became a woman and still there was nothing she could do.

For ages the girl wondered .

What might have happened if he had given up his daddy’s millions

and stayed in her arms?

Well this tale happened

a long time ago.

Meanwhile the woman who had been

that girl stopped waiting.

After years and years of longing and wondering,

she finally walked the other direction.

She shut her broken heart away

Full knowing.  She just might have been what he needed.  And still,

there was nothing to be done.

Today the woman remembers, still unable to know what might have been.

But she has stopped wondering.

In the real world, she found real love.  Not a dreamy or fairy tale .

And her story

Is only now being written of a girl, who became a woman and learned

She could love and be loved in return.  And that is worth knowing, worth remembering

worth writing down because she didn’t stay broken forever.

She learned to love again.

I don’t know. (a poem)

I don’t know, oh, there is so much I don’t know.

I don’t know if I will ever feel good, really good.

But I know I’m whistling while I work, unbidden and that’s some small joy.

I don’t know the lyrics to most songs,

but I know I love to sing.

I want the music on all the time.  No matter whether it’s ska, indie, classical, rap, reggae, world or even opera.

It’s what makes me feel safe, the sounds.

And books they make me feel alright.

I know I like order, but I”m messy.  I’ve never learned routines.

I don’t know if I’d change if I knew how.  But I know I like order.

I don’t know if the money will last the month.  Or what we’re having for dinner.

But I know we are here together.

I know, you’ll come home tonight and every night.  And I know you will always have me.

I don’t know if my sister will talk to me or if I’ll ever meet my nephew.

I don’t know what family means any more.  No patriarch, no matriarch.

I don’t know what will happen to us all, what I am supposed to do about it.  I just don’t know that at all.

I don’t know my parent’s history, only the results on our lives.

I don’t know why my dad was so angry,

but I know I stopped it at the door of my home.

I know I have that control and yet I know I’m not the One in control.

I don’t know if what I believe is true, the Truth.

But I know it gets me through.

I don’t know who I’d be without that belief and so I choose to believe.

I don’t know why I had children, but I know that I wouldn’t have found myself without them.

I know I am becoming the mother they need and I am so grateful that I am entrusted with their minds and hearts.

I don’t know what I can give them, but if it were just one thing

I would give each one

confidence.

I wake up most every day scared.

I want them to face the world bravely.  That I know.

Most days I don’t know what I don’ t

Know.  But today, I am sure that these things are true.

I love and I am loved.

I am a mother and that is the  most serious thing I will ever do.

I am profoundly aware of how my parents made me who I am.

I am undaunted.

In the end I don’t have to know as long as I keep whistling and choosing to believe.

When my heart hurts, I wait. (a poem)

I could be doing many things right now, my mother taught me that. 

I should always comes to mind first. I could, gives breathing room. She had a lifetime of shoulds. She lived for every one. And lost herself.  And so, she sits now with her regrets. 

I could be cleaning, calling a friend, or washing up.  I could be playing the piano, or laughing with ‘Mel & Floyd’ on the radio. Even singing.  Or I could be digging outside. But here I sit, with sleepy Jaz by my side. I linger with my heavy thoughts  and the radio that is playing Chaka Khan. Now she is wild and so funky.  So unlike me. 

As the kitten stretches in the sunshine.  I sit and wait for the words.  For I have poem inside and when that happens, I have learned I can wait. It is not time wasted.  Rather, a moment of anticipation. So I go to the screen; the sacred chamber that collects my words and blows them softly  way from me. I sit, pondering hard things.

I could be a better lover. 

I am earnest and devout, but I lack fire. 

I could be a better mom.  I sometimes cave.  If you’re a parent, you know what I mean.

I could definitely be a better friend. 

And should,yes should, take better care of each precious one. 

You and I spoke late into the night of our love, desire and longings.  Of heartache. Of your loyalty.  Of my addictions.  And of God.  And, of other secret things. And in the moments, when my heart hurt so much as if I was being crushed from the inside out I could only hold on to our love. And know that for all the shoulds that sit there between us; unrequited. Honest disappointments.  Pure pain. Still.  It’s you and me.  And I know, even though our journey together is imperfect I am glad to walk this life’s path with you. 

There, it came.  The swirling thoughts are out. Not always what I want to say. Not always something I would choose to admit.  But always when and what is needed.  I suppose the thing I most love about you, is the that though we are imperfect I can wake after such a hard conversation with hope.

April 15, 2010
Marriage.  It’s an amazing thing and yet so difficult.  I don’t talk about my marriage much but I know that just like all the other things that I write about (childhood psychological abuse, addiction & recovery, motherhood, creativity, insecurities, spirituality & faith, disbelief) everyone has relationships and many people have hard marriages.  Mine isn’t difficult, funny enough.  Mine is amazing.  But we have our things and from time to time they raise their head up and demand attention.  I don’t think we should be afraid to talk about it.  Like everything it is delicate and precious.

in this, and the next life (a poem)

the church

Unholy.

Like unrequited first love,

my heart discovers your incantations and magic

last night.  It seems this story has been written

a thousand times.  A girl

watches, listens, dreams.

She is silent, unmoved at the start and almost determined

not to feel.  And then she is profoundly shaken, breathless.

Listening as if never having heard music

before. You cast a spell.   A choir of guitars,

exquisite.  Cutting

deep.  Your sweaty hope.  Dreams vividly etched in the lines

in your face.  You may see

ancient sorrows but she sees only

sweetness and she falls

for you, for your voodoo songs.  You are

the weary traveller casting spells on the unwary girl.

You are

ahead of me

on the path to this, and the next life.   You

have my heart

now, beating erratically in your songs.  Carry it well.

April 15, 2010, Melody Harrison Hanson

I went because they are one of Tom’s  all time favorite bands, which is saying a lot for him.  He listens to a lot of music.   Last night we heard The Church at the Majestic in Madison, Wisconsin.  Bravo.  It was up there in terms of best live concert experiences I have had. It isn’t often that one discovers a band, hearing them for the first time live.  It was kind of earth shattering.  A bit like falling in love: I wasn’t looking for it, didn’t expect it, but can’t help but embrace it.

My Secrets (a poem)

When I was a small girl I loved heart-shaped ice cream bars, story books read aloud,

and running barefoot all summer long.  I remember back scratches and hugs after bad dreams.

I believed the world was good.  I knew nothing

of sorrow or regret; that someday I would need to forgive.

As I grew I began to see my father was never satisfied and he was afflicted by a secret rage.

Mother grew sad and afraid, there was no-one to tell; no-one who could help.  My world began

to crumble; secrets became bigger than life.

I discovered I could disappear, hiding from him I’d read a book all day long.

And later, hide

in work, shopping or a glass of wine.

Just like Mom, it was safer to be invisible, silent, placid.

I used whatever I could find to make the crushing sadness stop.


After years and years of hiding, love found me.  I began to write, to create, to grow things

and finally to heal.  Then I found my voice.

By telling this story I would flourish and reach, timidly at first for forgiveness.

At nearly forty I accepted that I was the one Jesus loved.  I never believed

that could be true.  You can’t be cruel to a person and share that truth.

My secret life of sorrow and lament;  the constant melancholy has become something else.

Though I still cannot understand why my father was angry, why life was so hard.

Today, in the early morning quiet, I know who I am now matters most.

I remember, which hurts.  I forgive, which heals.

When your grief overwhelms and possibilities are gone, what you choose then matters.

Somehow love found me, but I chose to receive it.

Bad things will happen, I can’t stop them.

In choosing Jesus and hope, I have a world of possibilities ahead.

In choosing to forgive, I live.

by Melody Harrison Hanson.   https://logicandimagination.wordpress.com

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Longing for Mercy (a poem)

It’s interesting to be so brazen as

to think that you understand forgiveness.

You may grant it to others.  You may think you know

something, in the granting of it.

And then,  it is only then

after that when you fail miserably.

It is almost beyond your own ability to comprehend.

You, as only   you   can, call from within your mind and heart the unguarded, profoundly wrong words.

The anger is historic, visceral, blood-thirsty and full of hate.

It comes writhing out of you, out of your mouth and in that moment

even as you don’t honestly care who you hurt, you know what has been said

cannot be undone.  You said it.  It is done.

Never mind that she was your equal. Equally vicious and also her father’s child.  Cruel and unkind.

Still, the pain you provoked cannot be undone and for a moment it is clear

you’re finished.

Thoughts  crowd in : “I never said…” “I didn’t mean…” The feeling of worthlessness threaten to overwhelm.

You are spent. You must face the truth.

Do you seek forgiveness? Or do you wait and wait it out?

No   time    stretches    longer

than the lingering, the waiting for grace, gentle and undeserved. Fear looms

as your heart pounds in your chest. Days are spent hoping.  It is no trifling thing, this longing for mercy.

And so you submit to the marking of time and wait,

wanting to believe

in forgiveness. It is undeserved but will be welcome.

April 2, 2010
Melody Harrison Hanson
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When Life was a Bad Dream (a poem)

When Life was a Bad Dream

When I was a little girl, swinging, playing happily I had no thought for the future.
Children live in the now.   And believe.
I believed my parents loved me and each other; they would never hurt anyone.
I believed the world was good and safe, even as I couldn’t conceive of sorrow or regret.
I didn’t know that someday

I would need to understand my parents and forgive.

When I was a little girl I loved heart shaped ice cream bars and storybooks,
and running barefoot all summer long.  I remember back scratches, and hugs after bad dreams,
and I remember a sense of wonder about life.
I began to understand, though,

that Daddy’s get very angry,
that Mommy’s can be sad and afraid,
and that children are a problem.

I learned that the world was scary,
even as I couldn’t conceive of bad things happening to me.
Then I began to wonder

in my confusion.  Wondering
if this would be the fight that ended everything.  If this time she would sink
down so far she might not come back.  Like Alice in Wonderland
shrinking to a place I couldn’t find.
And then, I wanted to go with her to that sad, safe place of no return.

When I was older I discovered I could find that place myself.  Sometimes I would hide
in bed with a book all daylong.  And later, much later, when I got so used to hiding
from my pain, I would hide in alcohol, or work, or shopping.
Whatever I could find to make the sadness stop.  I was being crushed by it.
I had no hope and never realized life offered possibilities.
I would disappear into a crowd of friends and a glass of wine.
It was safe to be invisible, silent, and placid.
I began to hide, just like Mom.

After years and years of hiding,
I was finally coaxed out into daylight by my husband’s love.
The sun felt warm, the world was a place of promise.  And in time, I found
I could hear the birds, taste and smell again, and popping into my head
were opinions, feelings, and judgments.  Sometimes they would erupt out of me
shocking me and those around.

I began write.  To create

beauty, to grow things.
At first I didn’t want to admit this story.  But I had hidden for so long, denied

what truly occurred.
I knew, telling this tale was a part of forgiving.

It was then, I began to consider that I was the one Jesus loved;
the Jesus I never knew.  You see, when someone cruel tells you about Jesus,

you can’t believe that God would really love you.

And if Jesus did, why did he allow

forty years of lost days and nights?

Sorrow.  Melancholy.  Lament.

That mystery I have considered for years.  And years.  I asked

why was my father so angry?  Why was my life so      very      difficult?

And will life ever be easier?  Here’s the thing.

If it didn’t happen that      way.  To      me.  I wouldn’t be Me.
What I have learned is that who I have become is important.
And so I sit in the early morning darkness,
In the quiet of this beautiful new life,  remembering.
It happened, the past.  It hurts,
to remember.  And to say out loud

that fear was my life story.  I was Fear.

I close my eyes to look back more clearly.  What I see
is a fusion of good and bad, there was laughter and there were tears.

The jumble of heartache, worry

even terror became an argument for hate.  But sitting here I know
when life is most terrifying, when your grief overwhelms,
when your possibilities are gone

what you choose matters.

Somehow, I found love.  Or love found me.  Either way it’s good!
We scratch each others’ itches.  We smell and taste life as fully as we can.

And allow our little ones
to run freely, some might say wildly.  But we are exuberantly facing life,
believing, and mostly living      in      now.
Bad things will happen.  I can’t stop them.
We make a world of possibilities for our children and ourselves.
And it is in the choosing Hope,
Choosing the Life that Jesus offers, it is in the doing

differently

that I know I will forgive.   And I will live.

Painting and Poetry

blue mood
blue mood

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and
poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
— Leonardo da Vinci

being right isn’t everything (a poem)

Growing up, I thought being right

meant getting my way.  It never occurred to me to be otherwise.

My father always won, so it took a long time to learn my father might not win.

When I finally let go of my ideas and the argument was over,

there would be peace and quiet — at least for a little while.

My father

was one of those people for whom to be right was his last breath,

his complete and final concept of himself.  It gave his life meaning.

I wonder what was done to him?

What terrible memory dogged and rattled him?   What was he afraid would happen if he stopped

for just a minute? Something was chasing him all my life and years and years before

commitments, kids and a wife entered in.

When they told him he was dying I thought

finally!   He might stop running.   And all the trips to help

with doctors and medicines, the chemo and radiation that stole his energy

and memories,

that stole my name, still

cancer gave me the gift of sitting, finally time to simply be

with him.  But rather than rest, accepting

he had mere months to live

he still thought he could win.  What was he thinking?  In those last days

the cancer broke him.

Finally, something got the best of all his striving, his knowing.  Being right.

Whatever it was that chased and tortured him — I will never know.

I thought being right would feel better than this.

Perhaps that is why he died still believing

he would live.

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Forgive like you have been forgiven – 70×7

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Image by M e l o d y via Flickr

“It is not easy to forgive,…but bitterness is corrosive. Like a container filled with salt, it will destroy everything because the Lord cannot forgive us if we cannot forgive others. Life is wonderful if we let God heal us.”

I am thinking and mulling about forgiveness and a poem I have been asked to write.  I have never written a poem this way, so I’ve been anxious about it.  Part of the problem is that God has kicked my butt on the topic of forgiveness and I’m learning a mile a minute.

Some of the prose I wrote earlier on my blog were only the beginning.  Who knew!  It’s a difficult but good experience and I look forward (that doesn’t seem to be the right word) to seeing the outcomes in the form of a poem. (I do not envy preachers, as whatever topic you are preaching on the Lord would be convicting you about in your own life.)  I have been given several opportunities lately to ponder and carry out (or not – we always have the choice) the act of mercy.  The act of forgiving.

Sometimes we fail.  Sometimes the things we struggle with from our past seem bigger than that seemingly puny thing – the act of forgiving.  I think it’s a strange thing and it is not a human act.  I can intellectually decide that I want to forgive my father because it would be good for me and I believe in it out of religious conviction.  But it is only in that miraculous moment that it becomes something.  I choose, God works and God’s timing is unknowable.  We obey, we open our heart, we clear our mind, we “say” to God ‘take this x, y, and z because I’m sick and tired of it’ and in some incredible, unknowable, magical, miracle it is done.

The power of this miracle in my life — in my faith, relationships and personal health has changed me as a person.  How forgiveness has changed you?

This is not my typical way of writing a poem.  My poems erupt out of the experiences of my life.  This thoughtfulness and care is good and difficult.

70×7. Unimaginable in some situations.

I will continue to write and see what comes.  I am hoping a poem, but we’ll see.

Here’s a link to something else I’ve written about forgiveness recently which you may have read.

The quotation above is from an incredible article I read on the Faith & Leadership website at Duke University. A description and an excerpt is below.

After her daughter was kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, Angelina Atyam realized that her mission was not just to secure the child’s release, but to forgive her captors and work for peace and reconciliation.

by Sherry Williamson

Sevens surface as a motif throughout the transformation of “Mama Angelina” from a soft-spoken nurse-midwife and mother of six to an international activist seeking the release of all Uganda’s abducted children.

Atyam’s daughter was among an estimated 35,000 youth, some as young as 6, that the Ugandan government believes were abducted by the LRA during nearly 20 years of fighting. From 1987 until a ceasefire was signed in 2006, the LRA used children as human shields in battles with government troops. Boys were forced to become soldiers; girls were enslaved as “wives” to rebel leaders.

The path Atyam pursued to negotiate the children’s release — and to further peace and reconciliation within her country — was inconceivable for many other parents, but she was resolute. Guided by the Lord’s prayer, she and other parents of abducted children began to pray for forgiveness of the rebel soldiers.

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[Lenton Series] Winter Slowly Recedes (A poem)

WINTER SLOWLY RECEDES

by Melody Harrison Hanson, March 8, 2010

As winter slowly recedes

And sunshine makes certain promises,

I find myself wistful which is improbable, to be sure.

I am grateful for a long cold hibernation.

For the unlikely beauty of the frosty, brisk days.

The blue, icy nights that were endured.

I reflect on what didn’t come.

The monster, the unwelcome and frequent enemy.

I did- not- sink.  I did- not- fall- down.  I did- not, oh no!

Yes, I have returned to spring

enduring, resolute and full.

Able.

Even so, I am

More and more dependent on the One that came.

Who lost everything.

Who went to the dark, cold and frightening places

For me.

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I once was a control freak

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Image by M e l o d y via Flickr

I found myself yesterday recalling more difficult days.  A time when I was regularly caught up in bitterness and anger.  For nearly ten years that was a theme of my home life.

I resented my husband’s ex-wife.  I resented that he even had one. I resented her very existence.  And even more strongly, I felt total and abject misery about it.  My perspective on being a step-mother was that I was utterly helpless in my situation and terrible at it.

Once, only days after we returned from our honeymoon in northern california,

I woke up at some ungodly hour to screaming from the other room.  Molly had a bloody nose!  And apparently not her first, as Tom yelled back instructions for what to do.  Actually it may have been Tom’s bellowing that woke me and I – was – pissed.  I’m not sure I even gave him time to resolve the bloody nose before I tore into him that he should never wake me up screaming on the top of his lungs again! I’ll never forget that incident because that was the day that it hit me, I was a step-mom.

Yeah, seems like I should have dealt with that fact earlier, but I was in love and could not be bothered at the time with the details of a child.  How bad could it be?  And she wasn’t even with us all the time. It brought new meaning to the phrase ignorance is bliss!

When we married in June of 1993 Molly had just turned five.  If I recall correctly the custody arrangement at that time was week on week off.  And so for those early years of our marriage, we were honeymooners for a week and then became a little family for a week.  It was strange.  It was a bit like playing house for me.  I have very few memories of those early years, except I had no idea what I was doing.

I do remember being in the grocery store and I had told Molly something she needed to remember.  I was angry because she didn’t.  And as if it was yesterday, I recall Tom telling me “With children, you have to tell them about 100 times and even then they may not remember.  They are not robots.” 

“Things would work a lot better if they were robots! “I thought to myself as I stalked off to the dairy department for yogurt!

I felt step-parenting was constantly humiliating and I was consumed with the fact that I had no power –no real authority.  And yet, I was expected to help raise this little girl.

Those were difficult years.  I would go to work and forget for a while and become consumed in my work.  Going home was frustrating, and time-consuming and made me feel incompetent. I behaved shamelessly — doing things I would never allow myself to do now.  A step-parent, no matter how frustrated should never speak poorly about the other parent.  Ever.  It’s petty and shallow and makes it unsafe for the child to talk to you.

Over the years, Tom was a perfect example of self-control.

He was strong and saint-like as he dealt with me (a raving lunatic), his ex-wife (no comment) and his daughter.  He was commited to peace.  Even as I goaded him to fight back or stick up for us or express our viewpoint he remained adamant that he would not do anything that allowed her to escalate.   Peace at any price, for Molly.  Early in our marriage I saw this as weak and even cowardly.  Growing up, I saw arguing as normal.  Sticking up for yourself was important because we had very little power and one had to keep it at any cost.  But I learned – ever so slowly – from Tom was that there was power in not jumping into the fracas.

And over the years I did see that our home was a safe place for Molly, because of Tom.  It took me years, really not until 1993 or 94 top be open enough to allow God to work on my heart.  I wanted control and was no good at letting go of it.  I wanted a clear role and as a step-mother that was a constantly shifting one, as “real” mom changed who she was and what role she wanted in her own daughter’s life.  I wanted authority and as step-mom felt like I never had it, ultimately.  I wanted the injustice and mess of Tom’s divorce  not spill over into my newly married life.  But it boiled over, regularly.  I wanted to help this little girl and in the end miraculously good came of it, but it was very ambiguous and it was not until she was an adult herself that I could really see that I had played any positive role in her life.  I thank God for his kindness, as I had a lot to learn and this little girl was an innocent bystander to those hard lessons.  Fortunately children are resilient and God is tender and merciful.

At some point in the winter of 1994 I took a long walk, pouring out my heart to God.  I expressed my disappointment and anger at this aspect of my life and I needed him to heal me.  I cried out, in my sense of inadequacy and fear.  I was so resentful that this woman existed as if I could wish her away.  Ultimately it came down to something Tom had said to me from the beginning of our marriage.

“You give her all the power by resenting her so much.”

In our pre-marriage counseling, our pastor Craig Barnes, said “She (ex-wife) will be the most important other person in your marriage.  Supporting her role in Molly’s life would become my most difficult task.” [Those were not his exact words.]  If only I had listened.  If only I had believed him.  But I had to sort it out in my way in my time, I suppose.  Ten years of tears, and grief.  But there was a bigger lesson I was learning about power and control and that day, ten years later, I gave up any inclination of my power.  And in a mystical and almost instantaneous moment I was healed.

Over the years we still had our struggles, but Tom and I became a team at that point.  I began to see that in his peacemaking he was strong and had power.  He always chose what was best for Molly and I came to support that and learned to bite my tongue when I wanted to lash out (literally drawing blood at first).  I learned to listen and eventually I let go of my perceived power.  Because that is all it is when you are a parent – the perception that what you are doing will change these little people into what you want.

Who knew that our children learn from our choices to not say or not do something, as much as from what we do and say to them.   No matter whether we are a step – or a “real” parent, we have to let go!

Step-parenting is hard.  Anyone who doesn’t know that is ignorant and naïve.  But it is character building.

If you are given a close relationship with the child you receive into your life, as I have been, well, that’s something to celebrate!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]We are blessed with a wonderful relationship with Molly today.  She’s an amazing young woman.  And I can also say that my relationship with/toward her Mom is positive and though our contact is limited now that Molly is an adult our interactions today are healthy and supportive of each other.  God is good.