And So We Practice

And So We Practice

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~~~
There was a lot to worry about then.  
Mostly talking.  
I was a stutterer.
I couldn’t say the word,
Stutterer.

I couldn’t say a lot of words.  

Gladys, my childhood+++ forever friend (67 years and counting) gave me this book, Markings.  Maybe for a birthday?  I didn’t fully understand it, yet I got it—I got something from the words of Hammarskjold, the peacemaker, that “faith and love require of him a life of selfless service to others”, that “the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.”

The book had nothing to do with me.
Really, it didn’t.

I had too much to worry about,
To be able to love other people,
To be there
For other people.

Other people were a threat.
They expected me
To talk.

Yet,
It had everything
To do with me.

Eventually.
And
Inevitably.

It 
Did.

~~~
Talking kicked my butt.
It was a secret that I stuttered.
Absurd
But
True,

The perfect emotional essence, 
The guiding light
Of the 1950’s…

If you don’t mention it,
It
Doesn’t
Exist.

Yet, every time
I opened my mouth
To speak,

I blew the collective denial
Of my family,

Because,
Well,
I
Stuttered.

School was scary.
People were scary.
Everything was scary.

But camp.
Girl Scout Camp.
Wasn’t scary.

Hallelujah.  
~~~
A thousand years later…

The gifts of stuttering?
For me, 
Thank you,
Universe,
They are
Innumerable.

I always wanted to write.
Because there,
Because here,
I can say
Anything.

I wrote as a kid,
A bigger kid,
As a fake-grown-person.

But not consistently.

Now, I write consistently.

I always made up
Other ways of saying things,
Because I knew the sounds
I couldn’t say.

And now I write.
And now I say
What I choose.

I outlived the trauma.

I have been blessed with
Decades of
Post-traumatic growth.

This, the greatest trauma,
Was the most massive
Doorway
Back
Home.

Hallelujah.  
~~~
I am an anxious person.
It makes sense.

Well, there is plenty
To be anxious about,
If you ask me.

Today, however,
I have 
Some tools,
Some strategies,
Some practices

To dismantle,
To soften, 
To aerate
My anxiety.

Walking with
Repetitive
Prayer,
Mantra,
Affirmation,
Settles me.

Repeating patterns
Of behavior
Settles me.

(I’m a committed and fully dedicated
Bed-Maker.

The day I die…
I will probably
First
Make
My bed.)

Ritual relaxes me.

Repetition tethers me,
Grounds me,
Settles me
Away from
The anxiousness.

None of these strategies
Change reality.

Yet they do
Soften my grip
Upon 
It.
~~~
Chanting comforts me.  Repetitive song soften my heart.

Here is a glorious song, 
Please Prepare Me, by Beautiful Chorus