There are so many gifts involved in the life of a writer. Perhaps mostly it is in exploring moments deeply, holding them in our minds, mulling them over, experiencing them again and again until we gain from them what we are seeking – some insight or relevance, some way to share these moments with others.
Recently, I changed the cover art for my Writing FaceBook Page to an image of a typewriter, and a writer friend messaged me that she felt we must be related because she was currently wearing a typewriter necklace. We are spiritual soul-mates for sure, and her sharing her necklace reminded me of all the gifts that have been given to me by family and friends who know me and know that writing, sharing, speaking my heart is my soul’s spiritual practice.
My children have been my greatest gifters throughout their lives. They have shown an uncanny understanding of what it means for me to be a poet mama to wild boys. They know when I need to be comforted, when the world is too much. They know when I’m overjoyed by them, and they let me look at them with poetic wonder for all that they are and all that they mean to me. They are my poems. When they were very little and needed all my attention, my mother told me they were the poems I was writing every day.
When my now 18-year old was only eight or ten years old, he made an Open-Mic Poetry Gathering for me as a Christmas gift and it was the most amazing gift I’d ever received.
And the jewelry! Oh, I have been blessed. This gift was from my amazing Sister-in-Law, an artist herself. Her depth of talent in gift-giving is astounding. This is a steampunk trinket she found, and then she hand-printed on the inside cover a section of one of my poems, “She Thought Perhaps Azalea.” I was already in tears. Then inside the itsy-teeny-tiny book, hand-written in painstakingly gorgeous and miniature script, in its entirety, my poem, “The Picnic Tree.”
There is so much more jewelry from my kiddos – there is a ring made for me when one son was five and cutting metal with his dad in the shop. There is a necklace made from a shell found on the beach by one of the older boys. There is a heart-shaped trinket made in my son’s own foundry, after he learned to melt metal. It goes on and on, but the books created by my kids and the jewelry made specifically to show me they cherished my poet heart are here.
And the necklace Poetry Book made for me to wear to Open-Mic nights. Being a writer has so many gifts involved in how we look at life, how we process things, how we live each moment twice or three times or more as we write about it and share it. Today, I am mulling over the gifts I can hold in my hand or wear around my neck that remind me how deeply I am loved.
