Revised- I need a title

Abby, my fifteen–year-old daughter, is midair, captured in a moment I perceive as utter joy. Her muscled legs have sprung into action in a flash of grace and power. Her healthy body lifts effortlessly three feet into the air. Her arms stretch skyward as if all of life’s gifts are within her reach.
The photograph was taken in June 2008 by one of her then many friends. By the middle of October, I was faced with a very different image. An eating disorder had invaded, occupied and warped my daughter’s brain. Mirrors lured her into their distorted reflections. Deceived by their warped reality, Abby refused to eat. She was twenty pounds lighter, eating 400 calories, if any, daily and exercising excessively . She was losing an average of two pounds a week. Abby was starving herself to death. And I was scared to death.
I wasn’t powerless, though. Thanks to a program that uses The Maudsley Approach, I had faith that my daughter would prevail. This approach does not place blame or search for causes. It treats the physical symptoms of the disease. Families play the integral role of re-feeding the patient. I would become Abby’s nurse, charged with the mission of finding ways to insist that she eat.
After being evaluated and diagnosed with an eating disorder in mid October, Abby and I had been driving to Portland’s Mercy Hospital every week to meet with a therapist to help us conquer this insidious disease. I became very educated. What I learned horrified me. Anorexia is one of the deadliest psychiatric diseases. It’s estimated that up to 15% die from starvation or suicide. About one third make progress but struggle with a life-long obsession with food. Many suffer from depression, anxiety or become substance abusers. If Anorexia is not treated early on, it takes an average of five to seven years to recover. We needed to beat the eating disorder before it became full-blown Anorexia. I was not going to allow Abby to become part of these statistics. Hope whispered to me from the photograph.
By mid-November, the enemy had not retreated. The Abby I knew was disappearing before my eyes, and in her place was a despondent stranger. My little girl, full of spunk from the day she hit the ground, sat in front of me, slouched in an over-sized sweatshirt, eyes lifeless. As I had been doing since October, I made a healthy plate of food for the two of us, set hers down in front of her and braced myself for a battle.
“Mom, this is way too much. I have at least two servings of protein here. Look, it’s two of my fists at least! Butter on the broccoli! I’ve had all my fats for the day. What are you trying to do to me? You’re gonna make me fat!” Her face was twisted in terror.
Stay calm, I thought to myself. Remember the picture of the anorexic brain. I heard the therapist’s voice in my head, ‘we’ve found that if we reverse it within the first eight months, chances of total cure are good. After that time, chances decrease’. Ignoring my frantic inner-voice, I said in a calm but firm voice, "Abby, I’m going to sit here with you until everything is eaten. There is no negotiating. It’s my job to give you what you need because the disease prevents you from doing it right now.”
In defeat, she bowed her head and began eating. It was, relatively speaking, a successful meal. Although she sat expressionless, methodically dividing and eating miniscule morsel, after forty-five long minutes, the meal was eaten.
Then it was time for dessert. I placed a chocolate chip cookie in front of her. “No, Mom! I can’t. You know I can’t. I’m not eating that. I’ve done all I can for today. Please, Mom, NO!”
“Abby,” I began, “ you need to trust me. I would never do anything to hurt you. I love you. I’ll sit here until you’re finished.” I was exhausted and unsure if we could continue this battle alone. I persevered, remembering the joy and grace that was once Abby's. It would be hers again.
She looked at the cookie, and for a flicker of a second, I thought she'd take it into her hand. Instead, she pushed back her chair and screamed, “No way! You’re just trying to make me fat! I can’t. I won’t. You can’t make me!” She stormed off. I heard her angry footsteps make their way upstairs. I took a deep breath and followed her up the stairs, chocolate chip cookie clenched in my hand. She yelled down to me, “You can’t make me eat it!”
No, I can’t, I thought, but I’ll find a way for you to eat it. I’m not giving up at this point. If I do, every effort I made before would be wasted.
Determined, I took one step at a time, thinking of all that this disease had taken from her. In a few short months, it had stolen much of her life away. The doctors worried that her heart was at risk, so she was forced to give up hockey, a sport she played with passion. While her hockey buddies were busy on the ice she was forbidden to engage in any physical activity in an attempt to conserve precious calories. Her life became a constant struggle with food. There was no energy or time to engage in any social activities. Her cell phone stopped ringing. The once familiar buzz signaling a text message became a heartbreaking silence. There was no rushing to the computer to check Face Book. The constant rattle of fingers instant messaging on the keyboard was ominously silenced. The disease was tenacious and would not surrender easily.
When I entered her room, she was in her bed in the fetal position. Her quiet sobs shook her emaciated body, causing tiny shifts in the blankets that covered her. “Abby, please. You know I won’t leave you alone until you eat it.” I sat on the bed and pulled the covers from her face. Her bloated eyes glanced at the cookie as if it were poison. She moved away from her bed toward the door, begging me not to make her eat it. I follow her. She slumped onto the floor. One hour and many pleads and tears later, exhausted and beaten, she began to break the cookie into tiny bites. After the first bite, I sighed a cautious sigh of relief. Another hour later, the cookie was eaten. Another tiny step forward. This disease would not prevail.
A few minutes later I heard the desperate sounds of her feet pounding the stairs in an effort to shed the calories she’d consumed. I cursed the disease, went to her and said, “If you continue doing that, you know you’ll have to eat some more to make up for it. Abs, please, can’t you see that the disease is making you do this?” She looked at me, releasing a moan, dropped to the floor in a heap and began sobbing again. I walked over to her. She pleaded, “Please help me, Mom. I don’t want to do this any more. I don’t want to be like this, please. Make it go away! It’s so awful! Even as I say this, I’m telling myself that my stomach is too fat. I can feel the fat rolling. I don’t want to feel like this any more!”
This was the beginning of the end of the eating disorder’s hold over my daughter. Abby began to see the difference between the disease and her healthy self. She began to trust that I knew what was best and that I would not allow the disease to defeat her. A few more months passed, and together we re-nourished her body and mind. By March she had established a healthy weight. Slowly and incrementally, she began to take more control over food. Bit by bit, the disease retreated and I began to see my daughter re-emerge. By May she was making her own plate, with little input from me.
In June, Abby had a breakthrough made indelible for me by a precious moment. She had gone out with a friend, and when she returned, bounced into the kitchen with a grin that her face could barely hold. “Mom, guess what?” she asked. “Guess what I did today? I actually chose to have an ice cream cone. And Mom, I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it!” I looked into her dancing eyes and saw pure joy for the first time in over nine months. We’d beaten the disease. My little girl was home. I glanced over to the fridge, zooming in on the photograph, and was reassured that life's gifts were once again within Abby's reach.

Crows

Crows

In twilight’s mist
a dash of black
pierces through fog

Turning my head I see crows
Dancing like notes pulsing across a scattering page
Synchronized wings carry them, as if one
from the ground, pure white with snow
into winter’s bare trees

perched crows polka dot the branches
they wait

waiting

for a slight sway of a conductor’s baton
for the music to begin
for the next dance

The Day my Kitchen Smiled

I have had enough. I said into the frigid air as I pushed the snow into the shovel and tossed it behind my back. I do not want to be your friend anymore, I said to the innocent snow shovel while stabbing the crusty snow with it. March in Maine, I sighed. Snow piled up in never-ending heaps, icicles hung from every gutter and chunks of dirty ice were scattered about. Even the snowmen, once cheerful in newly fallen snow and bright-colored mittens, looked burdened by the lifelessness. Enough. I wasn’t quite sure what yet another March snowstorm would do to my already wobbly sanity. Enough!

Winter’s gloom permeated my home. The walls inside my small dark apartment mimicked the world outside. I plopped myself into my rocker in the kitchen and looked around me. My kitchen was dark and dreary. Was there no escaping winter’s dark shadows? The dark blue-colored walls seemed to be laughing at my depressed state. I scowled at them and begin to think. I do not have any control over what happens outside, but I do have control over the inside. I became determined to make myself a little refuge Maine’s never-ending winter. What is a happy color, I thought. Hmmmmm. Happy, really happy. Orange! My kitchen would be orange.

Two days later, my friend Martha knocked on my door. “Come in!” I yelled. Martha stepped inside. I was in my kitchen eating my breakfast, surrounded by paints, ladders, brushes and drop cloths.

“What are you doing?” she asked with a smile.

“What does it look like I’m doing? Do you see all my stuff?” I asked with a smirk. “ I told you I couldn’t stand the darkness one moment longer!”

When Martha left, I got to work. I rolled the walls and stretched the pole to the ceiling with each stroke. While I waited for the walls to dry, I started on the trim. The sun moved around the side of the house, and it began to get hard to see. I grabbed some special lights. I looked at the clock. Three o’clock. No wonder I was hungry. I grabbed some lunch then picked up the roller again. I put on the second coat of paint. I finished painting the trim. I checked and rechecked every spot and fixed all of my mistakes. Finally, I was done! I looked at the clock. It was 9:00. It took me TEN HOURS to paint my kitchen! I wiped the sweat away from my forehead and fell into a chair.

The next morning I crawled out of bed, sore from all that hard work. I spied a few spots of orange on my arm I’d missed in the shower the night before as I walked down my hallway into the kitchen. I stepped inside. My orange walls smiled at me. It was as if the sun sparkled against the walls! Mission accomplished, I thought.

Moments later, a cup of hot tea in my hand, I rocked in my rocker. I looked up and saw a slate grey sky framed in sunny orange. Only a few more weeks until the days become longer, a few weeks until we’ll begin to see the ground again, I thought and smiled back at my kitchen walls.

Seeking

A mother alone
on Christmas Eve
searches for the promise of Christmas.

Distant chimes beckon her back
to warm wooden pews
smooth with prayer
god’s hallowed voices
welcome her

Restless hope invites
her blue-eyed sparkle
Unsure of why,
there she is
head bowed whispering,
forgive us our trespasses
folded fingers seek
god’s embrace

Sweet forgiveness
pulls her home
a hymn on her lips
cradled in family’s comfort
she wraps herself in the promise of Christmas

For me there is little more powerful than hearing a good singer-songwriter. I love when I hear a song that makes me think, ‘Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I think. S/he’s captured it in so little words! Wow, well-said!” I find myself doing this over and over again with Slaid Cleaves. As he said himself in an interview you can read about from his website, "I eventually learned — or decided — that my job was not to tell people how I felt, but to tell them how they felt.” Again, perfectly articulated. His songs are a good mix of folk, blues and country, what I’ve come to know and appreciate as Americana. I’m not the only one who appreciates Slaid’s songwriting. Stephen King, another native of Maine, said this about him,

"I’m not particularly good when it comes to talking about music, but I know what works for me: what comes across as one hundred percent authentic. Slaid Cleaves is that thing. He starts in, and something inside the listener speaks up an says, “ You’re home.” He can be funny; he can be romantic without being sappy (no mean trick);he can touch your heart…His taste is as deft as his touch…I’m so glad I found Slaid Cleaves, because my life would have been poorer without him. You’ll feel the same, I think when you listen to this beautifully crafted album."

I’ve been listening to Slaid Cleaves’ songs for almost twenty years now. Slaid grew up in my adopted hometown of South Berwick, Maine and moved to Austin, Texas eighteen years ago to pursue a career as a singer and songwriter. He’s worked with me in writing workshops with my eighth grade students, done benefit concerts for local causes and has performed in the town of South Berwick, every summer for the last six or seven years in our Hot Summer Nights concert series. He brings with him his humble charm and thoughtful storytelling and shares it with all of us on the lawn in front of his elementary school where I now work as a first grade teacher.

Last week he performed here once again in South Berwick. Slaid has just released his newest C.D. Everything you Love Will be Taken Away. He sang many of his new songs, and they took my breath away. Once again his lyrics and melodies spoke to my soul. As you may guess from its foreboding title, his subject matter is not trivial. In this latest C.D. he writes poignantly about death, capital punishment, political deception, war, heartbreak and despair. The song which the title comes from, Cry is #6 on the Americana charts-above Bob Dylan! It’s the story of his parents’ long marriage and its end. The song that struck me the most was Temporary, which came to him in a dream and was inspired by epitaphs on gravestones. In it, he makes it clear how everything in life is indeed temporary. Watching him perform it, I was reminded to live and be truly present in each moment.

The writing seems effortless, yet any writer knows that to be untrue. When I hear the polished words of Slaid’s songs, I know how much hard labor made them as tight as they are. I know first hand how particular Slaid is about words through a good friend of mine who grew up with and co-wrote a song with him. She happened upon a story about Flagstaff, Maine in Yankee magazine a few years ago and began to write a poem. The electric company, in search of an ever-increasing demand for hydroelectric energy sources, decided to dam up the Dead River at Flagstaff, ME. The town would be flooded and be submerged under a lake forever. As she investigated further and labored over her writing, she decided to send her developing poem to Slaid. Over the next year, they worked, back and forth by e-mail ‘polishing’ the words while Slaid worked on the music. The result was a song, “Below”. You may want to check it and the video my friend made documenting the story on U-tube.

I’d encourage any of you to check out his website. Just google Slaid Cleaves, and you’ll find it. You’ll find some interesting stories, interviews, reviews and video and audio clip. Most of all, though, I hope you’ll listen to some of his songs and find what I've found, a little piece of myself. Happy listening!